Antti Ihalainen

Peat Production in High-Emission Level Peatlands - A Key to Reducing Climatic Impacts?

Both peat utilization and peatlands themselves contribute to increases in greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. This article examines how peatlands with naturally high GHG emission levels affect net GHG emissions during the life cycle of peat. GHG emissions were measured from three drained peatland sites with high GHG emission levels. The impact of peatland type on the GHG emissions was considered when peat was assumed to replace coal in an energy production facility. The emission reduction levels achieved with the use of peat fuel originating from high-emission level peatlands stood at 35% compared to coal use and 30% compared to the average peat emission value. The findings indicate that GHG emissions can be reduced overall when peat from high-emission peatlands is utilized instead of coal. Lower emissions are primarily achieved because the harvesting of peat from high-emission level peatlands reduces the GHG emission levels of those lands.

Design and Measurements

National Forest Inventory of Finland (NFI) has evolved from a line survey to a plot-based inventory (Sect. 1.3). Simulated sampling was introduced as a tool for planning the design during NFI8 and it was fully adopted in NFI9 (Sect. 2.1). The main assessment units in the field work are stands and individual trees, although some of the variables are assessed on circular plots with fixed radius (Sect. 2.2). Section 2.3 explains how the centre points of the sample plots were located in the field.