the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.
| 05 Aug 2026
Ideas and perspectives: Rethinking climate mitigation of afforestation and rewetting of temperate and boreal degraded organic soils
Abstract. Degraded peatlands are among the largest land-based sources of greenhouse gas emissions in the European Union (EU). In response, the EU’s climate change mitigation targets are driving efforts to reduce emissions and enhance carbon sequestration within the land-use sector. A significant challenge is the high emissions from organic soils, particularly those degraded by peat extraction and agriculture. This has sparked discussions on appropriate mitigation strategies. Rewetting is gaining attention, and concerns persist that afforestation may hinder rewetting efforts, thereby reducing climate change mitigation potential. However, such concerns often oversimplify both measures. Though many perceive afforestation and rewetting as competing strategies, these measures should ideally and alternately be implemented based on distinct local conditions and goals in different regions. This perspective evaluates their advantages and limitations using evidence from boreal and temperate peatlands. The paper highlights underappreciated, evidence-based arguments to support more nuanced stakeholder discussions and promote complementary, context-appropriate implementation of the measures.
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Status: open (until 27 Sep 2026)
- CC1: 'Comment on egusphere-2026-4089', Normunds Stivrins, 14 Aug 2026 reply
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CC2: 'Comment on egusphere-2026-4089', Normunds Stivrins, 14 Aug 2026
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In Figure 3, agriculture and peat extraction are combined, although their emission factors differ substantially. For example, the reported CO₂ emission factor is 10.27 t CO₂ ha⁻¹ yr⁻¹ for peat extraction but considerably higher for cropland and most grasslands. Could these land uses be shown separately? Otherwise, the combined average may give a misleading impression of emissions from peat extraction sites.
Citation: https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-2026-4089-CC2
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Figure 5 contains relevant information, but the simultaneous use of stacked areas, colours for land-use categories and hatching for countries makes some of the individual contributions difficult to identify. The authors could consider presenting Denmark, Ireland and Latvia in separate panels (e.g. Fig. 5A–C), while retaining the same colours and y-axis scale to facilitate comparison.
It is also not entirely clear whether “Cropland”, “Forest Land”, “Grassland” and “Wetlands” refer to the land use prior to rewetting or to the land-use categories under which the rewetted areas are reported in the national GHG inventories. This distinction should be stated explicitly in the caption or accompanying text.
As the manuscript discusses both agricultural organic soils and former peat-extraction sites, could the authors clarify whether former peat-extraction areas can be identified separately in the underlying inventory data? If such separation is not possible, it would be useful to state this limitation and explain under which land-use category these areas are reported.