Järvi, how did you get interested in this area of the research project?
I have been studying peatland ecosystems since my master's and PhD studies. During this time, I became aware of how humans have altered and exploited these natural environments. My interest has been to find ways to restore these degraded ecosystems and mitigate the negative environmental impacts we have caused. The recent debate on rewetting activities is particularly close to my heart in that regard.
How did the discovery of the SLU Future Forests seed money call come about first?
In autumn 2021, we visited the main experimental site of the project to meet the forest company Holmen Skog which manages the land. The announcement of the SLU Future Forests seed money call had just been released one week prior to that. During our discussions about the site and the potential for conducting a rewetting experiment, a colleague in our team reminded us about this call as an opportunity to initiate a multidisciplinary approach. That initial idea prompted us to gather our thoughts, develop the concept, and, fortunately, we succeeded in securing the funding.
What is the focus of this research and could you elaborate on it?
The project's core idea is to evaluate the multiple effects of peatland rewetting on ecosystem functioning and societal values. This includes for instance the effects on carbon and greenhouse gas fluxes, biodiversity and human wellbeing. We integrate these three key aspects and further analyse the social parameters that are essential for promoting peatland rewetting, such as policy support and public attitudes towards rewetting activities in general. The project contains three Work Packages (WPs). WP1 is managed by me in collaboration with Hjalmar Laudon and Mats Öquist. WP1 focuses on questions related to carbon and greenhouse gas fluxes, aquatic carbon export and soil biogeochemistry. Therese Löfroth is responsible for WP2 which concentrates on exploring the effects of peatland rewetting on biodiversity with a focus on vegetation and epigaeic insect assemblages. WP3 is managed by Camilla Widmark in collaboration with Elisabet Bohlin, and is looking at questions related to the public opinion and social acceptance on rewetting and what are the factors that have driven this.
How do the SLU Future Forests and Kempe Foundations funding agencies support and influence the trajectory of your research?
SLU Future Forests and the Kempe Foundations have supported the initiation of this multidisciplinary approach of assessing the different rewetting effects on the ecosystem services by providing funding for three post-doc positions. It was an extra push to further integrate a multi and interdisciplinary approach into the project. The three post-docs are starting their work in the spring semester of next year.
Could you discuss the importance of collaboration with different disciplines in the context of developing sustainable forest management strategies?
Collaboration across disciplines is key to obtaining a holistic understanding of the impacts of forest management. Natural mires provide diverse ecosystem services, ranging from climate regulation, water quality control, flood abatement, to biodiversity conservation and recreational values etc. To conduct a comprehensive assessment of management impacts and develop sustainable forest management strategies, it is crucial to comprehend the effects on all these ecosystem services and integrate that understanding. Investigating different ecosystem services across disciplines provides the opportunity to examine synergies and trade-offs among them. This helps us understand whether an action benefits climate, biodiversity, or other ecosystem services and allows us to prioritise actions accordingly.
How has the collaboration with various stakeholders influenced the direction or application of your research findings?
In this project, we collaborate closely with Holmen Skog, fostering strong connections. We also maintain relationships with key entities such as Länsstyrelsen Västerbotten, Skogsstyrelsen, and other stakeholders. A workshop on greenhouse gas exchanges and carbon cycling in managed peatland ecosystems was organised in the summer of 2023, drawing participants from Sweden and beyond, including representatives from Finland. While the research findings on rewetting forest peatlands are still relatively new and haven't yet significantly impacted stakeholder decisions at a larger scale, I highly believe that as we gather more data, this empirical information will prove valuable for stakeholders.
In what ways does your work contribute to addressing the knowledge gaps related to drained and rewetted peatland forests in boreal Sweden?
One main knowledge gap is the lack of empirical data on the rewetting impacts on complete carbon and greenhouse gas balances. Therefore, my work is focused on developing a network of measurement stations where we can combine the different fluxes of carbon and greenhouse gases into net ecosystem carbon and greenhouse gas balances for both drained and rewetted systems.
What are some challenges you see in your research, especially in terms of data collection, and how do you plan to address them?
Obtaining empirical measurements that provide robust data on climate impact requires substantial financial resources. This means that we are unable to conduct this work at numerous sites but only at selected ones. Therefore, the challenge lies in replicating these efforts at more sites and understanding how the effects vary from one place to another. This is where collaborations with other researchers become crucial to overcome this issue. Currently, I am collaborating with researchers both within Sweden and across Fennoscandia with the goal of synthesising data as much as possible.
Are there potential opportunities or applications of your research findings beyond the scope of the current project and future plans?
The ongoing work, including the measurement stations and the current experimental area, can serve as the foundation for developing new or future projects aimed at investigating long-term effects. Understanding how the effects of rewetting change over time is important. In the current project, we can only examine the short-term or initial effects of rewetting. I hope that these stations and the work conducted here will serve as a valuable basis for establishing long-term and larger collaborative projects, such as those within the EU Horizon call. In such projects, we contribute individual pieces of the puzzle and synthesise data from a broader European-wide network. Therefore, the SLU Future Forests seed money and the Kempe Foundations funding for the three post-docs serve as an important stepping stone towards these future goals.
