Habitat Conservation - Healing Our Planet
How can we help our peatlands to help us?
After extracting peat commercially from Ireland’s bogs for more than 70 years, Bord na Móna is now restoring these precious peatlands so that they can help us by absorbing more carbon. The organisation is using ArcGIS to plan and implement the most appropriate rehabilitation measures to reinstate biodiversity and natural peatland function to help Ireland achieve net zero emissions by 2050.
In January 2021, Bord na Móna permanently halted the commercial extraction of peat from bogs in Ireland and turned its attention to restoring and rehabilitating these vital ecosystems. Recognising the importance of peat bogs for carbon storage and absorption, biodiversity and other ecosystem services, it has set itself the ambitious target of regenerating 33,000 hectares of peatland in just five years.
Ecologists use ArcGIS to gain a detailed understanding of the condition of bogs so that they can identify the most appropriate rehabilitation measures, not just on each bog, but within different parts of the same bog. Each bog can be quite different, with a variable environment and a mosaic of peat depths, hydrology, habitats and topography. Plans designed by ecologists can comprise multiple interventions such as drain-blocking and bunding to optimise hydrological conditions to re-wet peat. These plans are then shared on ArcGIS Online, enabling all of the organisation’s ecology, environmental, surveying and engineering teams to develop plans together and ensure that they are implemented accurately.
With bogs from Galway to East Kildare, employees are generally dispersed across the country and work in very remote, wild landscapes. The use of ArcGIS field apps eliminates the need for them to record information on paper and type it up later, saving time and improving the accuracy of data collection. For example, the environmental team uses ArcGIS Survey123 to record the locations of railway lines, pipes and machinery, left over from the industrial era, that need to be removed. Equally, engineers use ArcGIS Field Maps to record the progress of different initiatives within a bog area on colour-coded maps of each site. All the data collected in the field feeds into a series of Esri operational dashboards in near real time, enabling senior managers to monitor the progress of up to 19 simultaneous rehabilitation schemes per year.
“ArcGIS is helping us to visualise, plan and carry out an extensive programme of peatland rehabilitation that will restore valuable ecosystems and deliver significant climate action benefits for our bogs.”
- Mark McCorry, Ecology Manager, Bord na Móna
To read more inspiring stories of how different organisations and government are using GIS to challenge climate change and make a difference, click here.
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