Peatlands. Article in The Conversation


The article is published on August 12 and is written by Gustaf Hugelius, Senior Lecturer, Department of Physical Geography, Stockholm University.

He writes: “Peatlands are surprisingly difficult to map as their growth is connected to many different local factors, such as how water drains in the landscape. This meant we had to gather more than 7,000 field observations and use new statistical models based on machine learning to create the maps.

We found that peatlands cover approximately 3.7 million square kilometres. If it were a country, “Peatland” would be slightly larger than India. These peatlands also store approximately 415 gigatons (billion tons) of carbon – as much as is stored in all the world’s forests and trees together.”

Read the article published in The Conversation:
https://theconversation.com/we-mapped-the-worlds-frozen-peatlands-what-we-found-was-very-worrying-144235

Read more about the collaboration between Stockholm University and The Conversation and how to pitch an article idea: https://www.su.se/english/staff/services/information-communication/pitch-an-article-idea-for-the-conversation-1.462268

More articles in The Conversation by researchers at Stockholm University: https://theconversation.com/institutions/stockholm-university-1019