exmoor mires project case study

MIRES ON THE MOORS Science and Evidence Report 2020 - University of Exeter

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Review of the Exmoor Mires Restoration Project

The Exmoor Mire Restoration Project (EMRP) 2006-2010 aimed to restore the natural hydrology of degraded blanket bogs on Exmoor by blocking up the network of old drainage ditches. This project will shortly finish and funding has been secured from South West Water for a new and larger 'Mires on the Moors' project which could potentially rewet up to 2,500 hectares of peatland on Exmoor. The EMRP Steering Group commissioned the Countryside and Community Research Institute (CCRI) to undertake an external and independent ...

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The aim of this guidance is to provide information to enable peatland restoration projects to develop appropriate monitoring programmes. Degraded peatlands are restored for a wide range of reasons. Restoration objectives can include protecting and enhancing biodiversity, improving water quality, reducing flood risk and protecting cultural heritage or carbon stores. Restoration projects need monitoring programmes to show whether these objectives are being met and to help them to adapt practices to respond to environmental changes. This document provides guidance on how to identify the most appropriate monitoring techniques for a peatland restoration project. More information on how to implement these techniques is available in the Natural England Commissioned Report NECR086 -A review of techniques for monitoring the success of peatland restoration. This note summarises the general principles for all peatland monitoring programmes and provides a check list to help design the monitorin...

Actively growing mires have high conservation value and the potential to sequester carbon. However, drainage, burning, overgrazing and atmospheric pollution have led to depauperation of native flora and loss of peat at many peatland sites. In order to counteract such degradation, palaeoecological techniques can be applied and the data then used to inform nature conservation practice. The present study exemplifies this approach and was conducted on degraded blanket mire in Yorkshire, UK, in collaboration with a field-based moorland restoration agency. High-resolution, multiproxy palaeoecological analyses on a peat core from Oxenhope Moor were used to reconstruct Holocene vegetation changes spanning approximately the last 7000 years. Humification, pollen, plant macrofossil and charcoal analyses show distinct changes in species composition and indicate their potential causes. Human-induced changes identified at 2100 cal. BP are most likely to reflect deliberate clearance by fire. Sphag...

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This topic report provides an update on the 2011 JNCC report, focusing on new information obtained since its publication in relation to mapping of peat soil extent, land cover, condition and change. The report also outlines our current understanding of trajectories of change following restoration activities. Here we cover the different countries of the UK alongside any Crown dependencies (Isle of Man) and UK Overseas territories (Falklands) with significant peatland area.

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The incidence of summit-type mire erosion has been investigated in a mire complex in the Forest of Bowland, Lancashire, using a combination of palaeoecological and radiometric techniques in conjunction with documentary evidence. Macrofossil analyses suggest that Sphagna have been a dominant component of the vegetation on Fairsnape Fell over the last 2000 years. However, over the last 100 years, Sphagnum species have disappeared from many areas. We conclude here that this decline was caused by the onset of summit-type erosion, which in turn was initiated through a combination of unusual factors: a period of below-average rainfall in the region in the early 1900s, resulting in lowered water tables in the peat; exceptional summer drought in 1921; and a decline in management standards because of shortage of gamekeepers after the First World War. We believe that these precipitated a catastrophic burn (probably in 1921), which may well have been accidental in origin. High levels of atmospheric pollution did not cause the loss of Sphagnum, but may have influenced their ecology. The heather moorland and blanket mires of Bowland are internationally important habitats for many species of bird of prey, as well as being economically important for grouse shooting. Consequently, catastrophic fires that cause large-scale degradation of upland peat landscapes have important implications for the conservation of these ecosystems and of the scientific archive preserved in peat ecosystems. It is suggested that high sheep-stocking levels on Bowland may prevent recolonisation of bare peat surfaces, thereby allowing peat erosion to continue.

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Understanding the Effects of Moorland Restoration on Water Quality and Quantity

A project partnership funded by South West Water involving the University of Exeter, Exmoor and Dartmoor National Parks, The Environment Agency, Natural England and English Heritage.

RS Hydro have been appointed by Dr Richard Brazier of Exeter University to install equipment on a prestigious monitoring project involving leading edge telemetry equipment to understand the effects of moorland restoration on water quality and flood attenuation...

Equipment Used

Monitoring equipment includes 70 level sensors, 36 INW Conductivity, Depth & Temperature sensors (CTD), rain gauges, 10 ISCO Automatic Water Samplers and an automated real-time telemetry solution using UHF and GPRS technology provided by Adcon Telemetry.

IRS Hydro have been appointed by Dr Richard Brazier of Exeter University to install equipment on a prestigious monitoring project involving leading edge telemetry equipment to understand the effects of moorland restoration on water quality and flood attenuation...

Upland peat bogs are delicate and hydrologically responsive ecosystems that are the UK's largest terrestrial carbon store. Modified catchments such as these have exacerbated flooding issues downstream flooding; the catastrophic floods of Lynmouth (1952) being a prime example. Peaty soils such as upland moors cover 3% of the globe's land surface but store more than 10% of the world's terrestrial carbon. They are therefore a very important global store of carbon.

Changes in land management practices over the last few centuries have also led to significant losses of dissolved organic carbon (DOC) and particulate organic carbon (POC). Together, the loss of moorland habitats and changes to their ecology has meant that there is a much greater awareness of how land management practices affect carbon loss within catchments.

As such, a research project of a minimum of three years will look to model the effects of ditch blocking and to therefore provide information to aid decision making regarding the feasibility of moorland restoration, identifying the range of benefits that this will deliver, including the additional sequestration of carbon to mitigate climate change.

The project has a number of work packages. Some of which include the monitoring of the hydrology, ecology, sediment and carbon fluxes over the latest two test catchments of Aclands and Spooners.

Project Monitoring Approach

RS Hydro have been contracted to provide all the monitoring equipment for the three year (possibly longer) monitoring project and to provide a comparative and continual time series dataset (both between sites and different events within each site). Over 70 level sensors have been installed to monitor surface water depth at the outlet of each ditch system and water table depth surrounding each ditch system. Rainfall data will also be recorded at each site and will supplement existing rainfall monitoring by the Environment Agency.

Downstream of each ditch (ten in total), ISCO automatic water samplers will take samples based on water level and/or rainfall thresholds. The samples will be taken and analysed for sediment, DOC and POC fluxes during storm-flow. Regular grab-samples will also be taken to characterise the baseflow fluxes of sediment, DOC and POC through the year due to flow of subsurface water from each site.

By characterising the responses before and after ditch blocking, it should be possible to provide an improved predictive model which can be used for peatland restoration strategies.

This project will also improve understanding and assessment into different restoration techniques and quality of prediction and probabilistic estimates of carbon loss. The project team members have devised a water balanced methodology for assessing the surface water pool-scale and catchment-scale processes. A water balance approach requires the accurate measurement of all inputs and outputs along with any changes in storage for both of the headwater catchments.

Monitoring points have been located adjacent to and radiating outwards from existing ditches and as such will measure the full maximum and minimum range of groundwater fluctuations before and after the ditch blocking. The image below demonstrates the expected pre- and post- surface and groundwater levels.

For each monitoring location, 6 CTD and 12 level sensors were installed alongside and radiating out from a small length of pre-selected ditch. Due to poor GSM/GPRS coverage, all of the devices were connected using Adcon A723 Series 4 radio telemetry units. In the centre of each catchment an RA440 UHF-GPRS bridge was installed to provide two way communication between all of the radios and also to the outside world using GPRS. All data is continuously uploaded every 15 minutes.

Each radio telemetry unit is self-powered using a 2-watt solar panel (15x12cms!). The telemetry unit has a complete power management program which will ensure that the internal rechargeable is always at its optimum charge but also providing all the power to the attached sensors. Some of the radios have up to 12 down-hole sensors attached. Even this small radio is future proofed enough to attach another 20 sensors should the monitoring requirements be extended at any time.

Losses of DOC/POC and improvements in water quality cannot be physically be measured in-situ due to cost and power requirements. As such, ISCO automatic samplers are being used to capture changes in water quality before, during and after rainfall events. Using rain gauges or level sensors, the monitoring team are able to create algorithms or simple thresholds that can trigger the autosamplers. All Adcon RTUs are automatically adjusted to co-ordinated universal time (UTC) and as such all Adcon RTUs all read to within <1sec of each other. Therefore any exceeded threshold can instruct any one or all of the samplers to take automatic samples at scheduled intervals or for a particular length of time. Obtaining samples throughout the catchments at exactly the same time allows the researchers to be able to make very scientific comparisons which are spatially and temporally defined. This allows researchers globally, for the first time to be able to trigger multiple processes or samplers at the same time whether that be 2 automatic water samplers or 200 water samplers.

RS Hydro were quick to establish that it would be cheaper to downgrade the signal input specification of the sampler and use real-time telemetry to record and control all of the sampling thresholds and sensors remotely. The telemetry system therefore allows all of the control to remain with the remote user rather than having to visit the auto-sampler to change the sampling regime. If the end user wanted to change the parameter that triggered the sampler(s), then this can be done remotely in just a few seconds. In the field, all of the parameters cannot be hardwired because the sensors and parameters may be several kilometers apart.

The implications of this technology allows the end user, engineer or researcher to measure and control small and large, simple and complex monitoring networks automatically. All alarms, whether it be data delay, battery alarms, threshold exceedances can be communicated by either email, SMS, voicemail or visually on the data portal.