Peatlands provide numerous benefits– they store great amounts of CO₂, act as area for water storage, and are biodiversity hotspots. Due to draining for agricultural use, they lose their multifunctionality and transform from a carbon sink to an emission source. Rewetting measures are expected to slow down and ideally reverse these negative developments. Against this background, the project aims at contributing to a transition from a hazardous agricultural use of drained peatlands from the viewpoint of climate protection to a more climate-friendly use.

The cooperation project KliMoBay involves: Weihenstephan-Triesdorf University of Applied Sciences (HWST), Bavarian State Research Centre for Agriculture (LfL), Ludwig-Maximilians Universität München (LMU) and the Chair of Hydrology and River Basin Management at the Technical University of Munich (TUM). The KliMoBay-project will support the activities of the Bavarian State Ministry of the Environment and Consumer Protection towards protecting peatlands by developing maps of climate protection capability and adaptation strategies including a variety of measures. Maps of annual areal CO₂-emissions will be developed via model-based methods. Thereby the project significantly contributes to the implementation of the Bavarian Master Plan Peatlands.

In this context, the subproject led by the Chair of Hydrology and River Basin Management contributes with the following focal points:

• Assessment and description of hydrological processes and parameters in peatlands by investigating representative peatland sites including review of available literature and thorough monitoring activities
• Process-based simulation of water levels and discharges in pilot areas
• Regionalization of specific values based on statistical approaches to peatlands all over Bavaria

Final outcome will be a map of seasonal water levels in peatlands. In addition, the process-based and statistical approaches will be used to compute

• scenarios of peatland water levels up to the year 2050
• regional anthropogenic and climatic influencing variables

Therefore, drained and rewetted peatlands will be examined, the effects of climate change on the hydrology of peatlands will be studied and adaptation potentials using appropriate water management measures will be developed.

Partners

Weihenstephan-Triesdorf University of Applied Sciences (consortium lead), Bavarian State Research Centre for Agriculture (LfL), Ludwig-Maximilians University Munich (LMU)

Funding

State Ministry of the Environment and Consumer Protection (Bayerisches Staatsministerium für Umwelt und Verbraucherschutz), co-financed by the European Fund of Regional Development (EFRE)

Project duration

March 2019 - December 2022