Project description

Moors are ecosystems in which the soil is constantly saturated with water. They provide a habitat for many rare animal and plant species that are specially adapted to these ecosystems. Moors play a major role in climate protection as they are important for the water balance and store large amounts of carbon.

Drainage has made the majority of Austria's peatlands usable for agriculture and forestry. Increasingly, tourism, settlement activities and climate change are also putting pressure on these sensitive systems. The remaining peat soil no longer contains any peat-forming vegetation. Drainage allows oxygen to enter the soil. In these drained (degraded) peatlands, the peat (dead peatland vegetation) decomposes and_CO2 is released.

Rewetting peat soils protects the stored carbon from decomposition and protects the habitat of endangered animals and plants. In addition, adapted management of the surrounding areas is necessary for the protection and maintenance of existing peatlands. For this reason, numerous agreements, strategies and regulations provide for the rewetting of degraded peatlands to mitigate and adapt to climate change and to safeguard biodiversity and ecosystem services in the long term (IPCC, EU Restoration Regulation, Biodiversity Strategy Austria 2030, Peatland Strategy Austria 2030+).

In order to successfully implement measures for the conservation and restoration of peatlands, it is important to obtain information on the extent and distribution of organic soils. While peatlands are often protected and their location is known, the extent of peat soils has not yet been precisely recorded. Official surveys are sometimes outdated and forest sites have been insufficiently taken into account. There are also survey gaps above the tree line.

The MOIST project answers the following questions:

• Where are degraded peatlands (peat soils and other hydromorphic organic soils) located?
• What area do they cover?
• Which areas are suitable for renaturalisation measures from a technical point of view?

In order to answer these questions, existing maps and data are compiled, supplemented with the help of remote sensing data and additional point data from surveys of various projects, and a suspected peatland area is modelled. This will be validated and supplemented by field surveys. In addition, a catalogue of criteria for assessing the possibility of renaturation (rewetting) will be developed with experts and stakeholders. These criteria will be used to create a map that identifies areas that are suitable for renaturalisation measures from a nature conservation, pedological and hydrological perspective.

Benefits of the project

The map created serves as a basis for long-term monitoring of peatlands and peat soils as well as for discussions and decision-making processes in relation to the planning and implementation of sustainable management measures and potential rewetting.