Northern Peatlands in Canada
An Enormous Carbon Storehouse
A story map by:
This story map will take you on a journey through the northern peatlands of Canada and explain why they are so important for both climate and biodiversity.
Through maps, photos and infographics, we will demonstrate why we need to understand and protect one of the world's largest carbon sinks.
Why are peatlands important?
Peatland ecosystems are wet, mossy, and carbon-rich
Peatlands are wetland ecosystems where the waterlogged ground slows the decay of dead plants. Over long periods of time, these dead plants gradually build-up to form peat soils that are rich in carbon.
Peatlands are defined as having at least 40 cm of accumulated peat, but most peatlands are usually a few metres deep and in many locations the peat can be several metres deep or more.
Peatlands are diverse ecosystems with distinct and often highly specialised plant species that are adapted to wet ground conditions. In many northern peatlands, a colourful carpet of Sphagnum mosses forms an open and gently undulating landscape of low-lying shrubs, sedges, and open water pools, with drier raised patches often covered in trees and lichens.
Some common terms for different types of peatlands include bogs, fens, muskeg, mires, and peat swamps.
Peatlands are the world’s largest and most dense carbon stores on land
Peatlands are globally important ecosystems, covering only 3% of the Earth’s surface but storing more carbon in their soils than other types of ecosystems. For example, 1 m² of peatland in northern Canada has around 5 times the amount of carbon as 1 m² of tropical rainforest in the Amazon.
In addition to being the world’s largest terrestrial carbon stores, peatlands hold a significant volume of freshwater that supports a network of rivers, lakes, and other wetlands. This freshwater is critical for diverse plant and animal species in peatlands, which provide vital habitat for a host of different bird species, fish, mammals, amphibians, and water-dependent insects.
Scientists measure the amount of carbon in peatlands by using a special shovel that removes a sample called a core. For each core section they can measure how much carbon is stored in the soil. By taking a complete core of the peat from the surface to the mineral soil underneath, they can then estimate how much carbon is stored in the peatland.
Where are peatlands?
Peatlands cover only 3% of the Earth’s land surface
Peatlands are found across the globe - from the tropics to the subarctic.
North American peatlands comprise about 32% of global peatland cover, with most of these peatlands located in Canada (25% of the global peatland cover).
Canada has the world’s largest peatland carbon stock, with peatlands covering over 1.1 million km², or approximately 12% of Canada’s total land area.
In Canada, peatlands span the country
The largest peatland complexes in Canada are located at northern latitudes in Ontario, Manitoba, and Québec, and in northern Alberta through the Northwest Territories and Yukon.
Peatlands are found primarily in the boreal zone
The boreal forest (outlined in green) stretches across North America and is one of the areas with the highest ecological integrity in the world.
The Hudson Bay Lowland is the second largest peatland complex in the world
It contains a significant amount of Canada’s peatlands and lies within the traditional territories of many First Nations who have navigated these rivers, wetlands, and marine regions since time immemorial.
The Hudson Bay Lowland is primarily located in Ontario, spanning west to Manitoba and east to Quebec.
Indigenous Peoples
Peatlands are part of the traditional territories of many Indigenous Peoples across Canada who remain deeply connected to these places as a basis for their social, community, cultural and economic values.
Indigenous Peoples are the guardians and stewards of these lands
Indigenous leadership is essential in protecting northern peatlands in Canada, including the biodiversity and carbon.
Click on the points on the map to learn more about emerging and established Indigenous Protected and Conserved Areas (IPCAs) in northern peatlands in Canada that have received financial support by the federal government as projects that can add to Canada’s commitment to conserving 25% of Canada’s land and 25% of its oceans by 2025.
In a landmark 2018 report , the Indigenous Circle of Experts explored the concept of IPCAs and their contribution to reconciliation and conservation outcomes in Canada.
In addition to these IPCAs that are established or emerging through partnership with the Canadian government, Indigenous communities across the boreal are taking the lead in Indigenous-led conservation through a variety of other initiatives, such as establishing community-based monitoring programs, leading research that address their values, and establishing protected areas within their homelands through their own governance structures
Zoom in on the map to see all the names of the IPCAs.
Biodiversity
Peatlands also play important roles in biodiversity conservation, wildlife habitat, protection of species at risk, water storage and quality, and maintenance of air quality.
Northern peatlands are vital for the protection of biodiversity
These large, intact places are also important for species and ecosystems to adapt to climate change.
For example, the Hudson Bay Lowland is home to a great variety of life, including many nationally and globally rare plants and lichens. Species of national conservation concern include caribou, wolverine, polar bear, lake sturgeon, red knot, and Hudsonian godwit (see images below).
Large marshes on the James Bay coast are of hemispheric importance as a migratory stop-over for hundreds of species of birds that migrate between the Arctic and South America. These coastal areas are critical breeding and staging grounds for arctic and sub-arctic shorebirds.
The Hudson Bay Lowland also contains some of the last undammed rivers of North America, which carry large quantities of nutrients and organic material and make the coastal zone very productive for biodiversity.
Hudsonian godwits wading on the shore of James Bay.
Polar bears (left), caribou (centre), and red knots (right) are all species of national concern that frequent peatlands across Canada.
Carbon Cycle
The carbon stored in peatlands can be thousands of years' old
The process to build up carbon stores is slow and takes hundreds to thousands of years.
Plants and other vegetation (e.g. lichens) remove carbon dioxide from the atmosphere and store it in leaves, stems, branches, and roots as carbon. As the plants die, this carbon slowly builds up in waterlogged ground to form deep peat soils.
Carbon (C), in the form of carbon dioxide (CO₂) and methane (CH₄), is naturally released slowly from northern peatlands through plant respiration, and organic matter decomposition, as microbes living in the peat soils ‘digest’ the plant material and peat.
When peatlands are disturbed, due to wildfires, permafrost thaw, or direct human disturbances (e.g. drainage, peat extraction), more carbon can be released and in a much shorter amount of time. This can turn the peatland into a source of carbon to the atmosphere and contribute to the problem of greenhouse gases.
A significant portion of northern peatlands are permanently frozen as permafrost
Due to rising global temperatures, permafrost is thawing rapidly and this is altering carbon storage dynamics in these peatlands, including increasing the amount of carbon dioxide and methane released.
But as new unfrozen peatlands form, more carbon may be taken from the atmosphere due to increased plant growth.
The carbon balance of these thawing peatlands is changing rapidly with as yet unknown consequences for the global climate.
Canada has the world’s largest peatland carbon stores
Globally, it is estimated that peatlands store upwards of 550 billion tonnes of soil organic carbon, which is equivalent to 30% of the world’s soil carbon stock.
Of this global total, approximately 25% (150 billion tonnes) is stored in Canada’s peatlands.
However, this estimate does not include carbon stored in vegetation above-ground (above-ground biomass) and so the total ecosystem carbon storage is likely much higher.
Northern peatlands store more carbon over longer periods of time than boreal and tropical forests
The vast below-ground carbon stores in northern peatlands, around 5 times that of tropical forests, remain there for a very long time - up to 10,000 years - whereas rainforests (and boreal forests with well-drained soils) mostly store carbon above-ground in vegetation and release their carbon in cycles of 100 to 500 years.
This is one reason why northern peatlands are critically important for climate regulation.
Impacts to peatlands from climate change and development
We cannot ignore the carbon impacts of future development. Keeping carbon in the ground is going to be critical to control the severity of climate change.
Climate change is impacting peatland carbon
People in the north are already experiencing the impacts of climate change in a much more direct way than southern areas. Many changes to the land have been observed by Indigenous Elders and recorded by scientists .
Climate change and human activities that make peatlands drier will increase their susceptibility to fire, which can release significant amounts of greenhouse gases. These fires can linger, smouldering below the surface over the winter as ‘zombie’ peat fires before emerging again in warmer months.
Scientists estimate an annual loss of ~5 Mt C attributed to wildfires in western Canada ( Turetsky et al. 2011 ). This annual carbon loss is equivalent to emissions from 278,000 cars over their lifespan.
Pictured here is a permafrost peatland in northern Alberta that burned in 2019. The dead black spruce trees will eventually fall onto the charred bare surface of the peatland, while Sphagnum moss, shrubs, and new spruce trees will slowly start to regrow. The fire will also increase permafrost thaw.
Permafrost thaw is changing peatland landscapes across Canada
Intensified warming and rainfall are accelerating ground collapse, resulting in thaw slump formation and the downslope movement of large amounts of material from land into freshwater ecosystems.
Permafrost thaw is also causing significant changes to the types of ecosystems present in northern regions, with drier raised permafrost plateaus thawing and collapsing to form wet bogs and fens.
Ongoing permafrost thaw in northern Alberta causes the collapse of a lichen and black spruce covered peatland plateau. After thaw, the boggy ground is too wet and unstable for the trees, but Sphagnum moss thrives.
The human population distribution of Canada is concentrated towards the south, but roads and other developments extend deep into northern peatlands
72% of the Canadian population lives within 150 km of the southern border with the United States (below the red line on the map).
However, in our natural-resource driven economy, our human footprint and resource development extends far beyond our population centres. This development is impacting peatlands, communities, watersheds and the carbon balance.
Carbon dioxide and methane are released when peatlands are degraded or disturbed due to draining for development, such as mining and road construction, or flooded for hydro electricity.
We must be very aware of what is at stake when we introduce development that could lead to major releases of irrecoverable carbon from these sensitive areas ( Goldstein et al. 2020 ).
For example, the Ring of Fire, a proposed mining development in a 2127 km² region of the Hudson Bay Lowlands ( Harris et al. 2021 ), could lead to a loss of 130-250 Mt C from peatlands, the equivalent of the emissions from 1.3 million cars over the course of their lifetime.
Undisturbed peatlands are important carbon sinks
Undisturbed peatlands continue to take carbon from the atmosphere and retain stored carbon for thousands of years.
Draining peatlands for roads or railways emits carbon
New roads and railways have an asymmetrical impact on peatlands. They create a wetter and a drier side, each of which changes the carbon balance.
The risk of wildfire is also increase in drained peatlands.
Flooding peatlands removes the stored peatland carbon
Hydro-electric development floods peatlands. This results in changes to the carbon balance.
The Road Ahead
More work is needed to quantify and report peatland carbon emissions
Canada is a signatory to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) and reports annually on its greenhouse gas emissions and reductions.
Canada uses models to quantify carbon emissions and reductions from ecosystems disturbed by resource extraction or converted to another land-use. These models are based on forest inventory data, which are only available where there is ongoing or potential commercial forestry. Peatland disturbances included in national reporting are limited to peat extraction for horticulture and flooding for hydroelectricity production. Models are currently being developed to better quantify carbon emissions from a broader range of peatland disturbances ( Harris et al. 2021 ).
Steps forward
The rapid changes now underway in northern peatlands due to warming temperatures require that more attention is devoted to quantifying how much carbon is added to the atmosphere due to events such as wildfires and permafrost thaw. Some of the challenges associated with quantifying the peatland carbon balance include developing accurate estimates of peatland extent and acquiring a better understanding of water table dynamics, vegetation change, and decomposition processes. This work is currently underway by some of Canada’s best scientists. Indigenous knowledge and Indigenous-led research partnerships are critical to develop the best possible understanding of these complex relationships.
In the Hudson Bay Lowland, this information will be critical to understand the consequences of new development, such as mining in the Ring of Fire and associated infrastructure, on greenhouse gas emissions and irrecoverable carbon in these vast and globally important peatlands.
Peatlands are an important natural climate solution
The path to net zero emissions by 2050 assumes that marine and terrestrial carbon sinks, including peatlands, will continue to remove about half the CO₂ emitted annually from fossil fuel combustion and land-use change. Ensuring peatlands continue to serve this essential function, while maintaining their existing carbon stores, requires a fundamental shift in how Boreal peatlands are assessed and managed in Canada.
We have developed a policy briefing detailing the steps that can be taken now to make this shift. Included among these actions are:
- Increase our understanding of how human activities affect carbon emissions from northern peatlands, including the impacts on future emissions of increased industrial activities that alter or remove peatlands and incorporate the cost of additional carbon emissions due to development prior to approving projects.
- Design and support financial mechanisms to reduce carbon emissions associated with peatlands.
- Support and fund Indigenous-led conservation, including land use planning and the establishment of Indigenous Protected and Conserved Areas (IPCAs) in the north to conserve and steward peatlands.
- Invest in Indigenous Guardians to help monitor and protect northern peatlands and to manage IPCAs that protect carbon storehouses.
- Invest in a national database for carbon storage and fluxes that will enable full accounting of carbon fluxes in peatlands.
- Expand peatland inclusions as part of improving Canada’s Nationally Determined Contributions to the UNFCCC and include all relevant carbon fluxes in the national inventory reporting of greenhouse sources and sinks.
- Develop a Pan-Canadian Peatlands Strategy that coordinates and creates policies and incentive schemes that recognize the need for the protection and restoration of peatlands across provinces and territories within the context of Canada's 2025 and 2030 Conservation Targets.
- Incorporate the carbon and biodiversity values of the Hudson Bay Lowlands as a world-class peatland into future planning, including the planned regional assessment for the Ring of Fire .
By protecting peatlands, we can address both climate change and biodiversity loss by maintaining areas rich in carbon and species. Protection of these unique systems is key to meeting Canada’s targets to reduce carbon emissions and conserve biodiversity.
Indigenous Guardians doing monitoring work.
We need innovative approaches to keep these areas intact and carbon rich.
Credits
This work is generously supported by:
References
Goldstein A., Turner, W.R., Spawn, S.A. Anderson-Teixeira, K.J., Cook-Patton, S., Fargione, J., Gibbs, H.K., Griscom, B., Hewson, J.H., Howard, J.F., Ledezma, J.C., Page, S., Pin Koh, L., Rockstrom, J., Sanderman, J., and Hole, D.G. (2020). Protecting irrecoverable carbon in Earth’s ecosystems. Nature Climate Change, 10, 287–295. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41558-020-0738-8
Harris, L., Richardson, K., Bona, K., Davidson, S.J., Finkelstein, S.A., Garneau, M., McLaughlinm J., Nwaishi, F., Olefeldt, D., Packalen, M., Roulet, N.T., Southee, F.M., Strack, M., Webster, K., Wilkinson, S.L., and Ray, J. (2021). The essential carbon service provided by northern peatlands. Frontiers in Ecology and the Environment. https://doi.org/10.1002/fee.2437
Turetsky, M.R, Donahue, W.F., and Benscoter, B.W. (2011). Experimental drying intensifies burning and carbon losses in a northern peatland. Nature Communications, 2, 514. https://doi.org/10.1038/ncomms1523
Notes
This story map was revised and updated on November 8, 2021. This version includes:
- updated text,
- maps of peatland extent produced using Hugelius et al. (2020) dataset version 1.0,
- references to new research from Harris et al. (2021) , and
- the link to the Northern Peatlands Policy Brief produced by Smart Prosperity Institute and WCS Canada.
