Betty Ehnvall

Hello, and welcome to this page!

I am a soil scientist who over the past eight years have unlocked mysteries related to the fantastic world if peatlands. As a child, I enjoyed spending time by the mire. My interest in soils and water brought me to Helsinki, Cork, Uppsala, and finally to Umeå, where I during my PhD years studied how mires in the coastal areas of Västerbotten are controlled by their upslope catchment areas. Since autumn 2024, I am a postdoc at the department of Aquatic Sciences and Assessment at SLU, Uppsala, and at the University of Toronto, Canada. 

High-latitude peatlands are incredible ecosystems that store up to 30% of all soil carbon as peat, despite covering only around 3% of the land surface. Apart from their vital role for the global carbon cycle, they also contribute to biodiversity, and to regulating hydrological and biogeochemical fluxes across the landscape. In Europe, around half of the original peat area has been drained for agriculture, forestry and peat extraction. Peatland restoration has been implemented over decades, with the purpose of recreating natural values of peatlands. Over the past years, peatland restoration has gain increased scientific and political attention, since rewetting has been proposed as a nature-based climate-solution.

In my postdoc project, I study rewetting effects on green-house gas emissions in Sweden and Canada, and explore how long-term drainage has affected soil properties in the Swedish forest landscape. The postdoc is a collaboration between SLU (PI Dr. Anneli Ågren) and the University of Toronto (PI Dr. Irena Creed and Dr. George Arhonditsis).

The Nobel Peat Prize 2024 for the paper "Topography and Time Shape Mire Morphometry and Large-Scale Mire Distribution Patterns in the Northern Boreal Landscape"

The Alfort Prize for the best doctoral thesis in physical geography in 2023 (in Sweden)

Please get inspired using our interactive mire map of the Sävar Rising Coastline Mire Chronosequence:   https://slughg.github.io/MiresChrono/

Ehnvall, B., Ratcliffe, J.L., Olid, C., Smeds, J., Bishop, K., Klaminder, J., Li, C., Nilsson, M.B., Öquist, M.G. (2025). Carbon accumulation in recently deposited peat is reduced by increased nutrient supply. Nature communications 16, 4271.

Ehnvall, B. (2024). Catchment characteristics and their long-term effects on peat accumulation in boreal and boreonemoral landscapes - A comparison between mire-catchment interactions in coastal Westrobothnia, and the Forsmark area. Svensk kärnbränslehantering AB report: SKB TR-24-04 

Ehnvall, B., Nilsson, M.B., Smeds, J., Liu, T., Bertilsson, S., Bishop, K., Björn, E., Skyllberg, U., Öquist, M. (2024). Restaurerade våtmarker – punktkällor för metanavgång och kvicksilvermetylering? Naturvårdsverket: rapport (in Swedish)

Ehnvall, B., Ratcliffe, J. L., Nilsson, M. B., Öquist, M. G., Sponseller, R. A., & Grabs, T. (2024). Topography and Time Shape Mire Morphometry and Large‐Scale Mire Distribution Patterns in the Northern Boreal Landscape. Journal of Geophysical Research: Earth Surface, 129(2)

Peura, S., Saetre, P., Ehnvall, B., Nilsson, M.B., Öquist, M. (2024). Plant functional type and peat determine elemental transfer in boreal mire vegetation. Heliyon, 10(20) 

Ehnvall, B. (2023). Catchment controls on mire properties in the post-glacial landscape. Acta Universitatis Agriculturae Sueciae, 2023:73. (Doctoral thesis)

Ehnvall, B., Ratcliffe, J. L., Bohlin, E., Nilsson, M. B., Öquist, M. G., Sponseller, R. A., & Grabs, T. (2023). Landscape constraints on mire lateral expansion. Quaternary Science Reviews, 302, 107961.

Ehnvall, B., Ågren, A.M., Nilsson, M.B., Ratcliffe, J.L., Noumonvi, K.D., Peichl, M., Lidberg, W., Giesler, R., Mörth, C.-M., Öquist, M.G. (2023). Catchment characteristics control boreal mire nutrient regime and vegetation patterns over ~5000 years of landscape development. Science of the Total Environment 165132

Wang, B., Nilsson, M. B., Eklöf, K., Hu, H., Ehnvall, B., Bravo, A. G., ... & Bishop, K. (2020). Opposing spatial trends in methylmercury and total mercury along a peatland chronosequence trophic gradient. Science of the Total Environment, 718, 137306.

Yli-Halla, M., Virtanen, S., Regina, K., Österholm, P., Ehnvall, B., & Uusi-Kämppä, J. (2020). Nitrogen stocks and flows in an acid sulfate soil. Environmental Monitoring and Assessment, 192(12), 751.

2023 PhD in Soil Biology (Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences, Umeå). Doctoral thesis: "Catchment controls on mire properties in the post-glacial landscape"

2017  MSc in Soil Science (Soil and Water Management, Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences, Uppsala). MSc thesis: "Organic matter properties and their relation to phosphorus and nitrogen concentrations in Swedish agricultural streams"

2015  MSc in Biology (Environmental Biology, University of Helsinki, Helsinki). MSc thesis: "Acidity caused nitrous oxide reductase inhibition and its impact on nitrous oxide emissions from acid sulfate soils" (in Swedish)

2013  Exchange studies (University College Cork, Cork)

2013  BSc in Biology (University of Helsinki, Helsinki)