Postgraduate Researcher

Contact Details

• Tel: 0116 252 3843
• Email: rdm11@le.ac.uk
• Fax: 0116 252 3854
• Office: Bennett Building F40

PhD in Physical Geography

The carbon balance of a regenerating peatland

After a previous career in the land based industries, I completed a BSc in Physical Geography at the University of Leicester in 2007.  During my undergraduate studies I developed interests in peatlands and global environmental change.  I returned to the Department of Geography to study for a PhD in 2008.  My research is supervised by Dr. Sue Page and Professor Heiko Balzter.  The project is funded by a University of Leicester 50th Anniversary Scholarship, and the Centre for Ecology & Hydrology (CEH), Wallingford. Download a recent CV.

FENFLUX: The carbon dioxide balance of a regenerating temperate fen

Northern peatlands store a disproportionate amount of soil carbon (C) relative to other terrestrial ecosystems and play a key role in regulating atmospheric C loading and climate. Fens are minerotrophic peatlands of high conservation value that have experienced widespread conversion to agricultural landuse over recent centuries. Agricultural exploitation of fenlands has contributed to anthropogenic climate change by altering the natural fenland C balance transferring large quantities of previously accumulated C to the atmosphere as CO2 (figure 1). The hydroecological restoration of agriculturally degraded fens is expected to become an increasingly important landuse management activity over coming decades and, whilst primarily concerned with biodiversity conservation, presents an important opportunity to protect and enhance residual fenland soil C stocks. Consequently, fenland habitat restoration is receiving considerable attention from scientists and policymakers concerned with maintaining and increasing terrestrial C storage for mitigating the impacts of climate change.

Figure 1: The Holme post at Holme Fen, Cambridgeshire. The long-term drainage and cultivation of fenlands has led to major losses of historically accumulated C to the atmosphere as CO2.  As a fixed datum, the Holme Post has recorded the progressive loss of over four meters of peat (and C) from the landscape.

The net peatland C balance consists of several flux components; specifically, vertical ecosystem-atmosphere exchanges of carbon dioxide (CO2) and methane (CH4), and lateral and vertical movements of C via hydrological pathways.  Whilst all are important within the context of contemporary environmental change, the net ecosystem exchange of CO2 dominates the fenland C budget and is critical to the long-term sustainability of fenland soil C stocks and the habitats they support.  However, CO2 fluxes from regenerating fenlands have been poorly quantified and it remains uncertain whether these ecosystems function as a net CO2 sink or source during regeneration.  Furthermore, as restoration practice will increasingly have to cope with the impacts of climate change, the ability to actively manage, protect and enhance fenland C stocks during and following restoration is presently constrained by a limited understanding of the dynamic response of CO2 exchange to environmental variability.

This research uses the micrometeorological eddy covariance technique (figure 3) to quantify the magnitude and dynamics of ecosystem-atmosphere CO2 and energy exchange at a fen that has been regenerating since hydroecological restoration in 1994 (figure 2) following over three centuries of drainage and intensive arable landuse.  Whilst the primary aim of the project is to assess the CO2 source-sink balance to determine whether restoration has successfully re-established the CO2 sequestration function, the research also aims to significantly improve current understandings of the dynamic response of the CO2 balance and its components (photosynthesis and respiration) to hydrometeorological variability at daily, seasonal and (inter)annual timescales.  The research will evaluate the sensitivity of CO2 assimilation, ecosystem respiration and the net ecosystem CO2 exchange to controlling environmental variables, and aims to predict the response of the CO2 balance to different landuse management, and climatic variability and change scenarios.  The project is based at the Wicken Fen National Nature Reserve in the Cambridgeshire Fens, the site of one of the largest planned fenland habitat restoration schemes in Europe.

Publications

Paoli, G. D., Carlson, K. M., Hooijer, A., Page, S. E., Curran, L, M., Wells, P. L., Morrison R., Jauhiainen, J., Pittman, A., Gilbert, D., and Lawrence, D. (2011) “Policy Perils of Ignoring Uncertainty in Oil Palm Research”, Proceedings of the Academy of Scientists of the United States of America (PNAS).  Available online: www.pnas.org/cgi/doi/10.1073/pnas.1105075108