An interdisciplinary book tackling the challenges of managing peatlands and their ecosystem services in the face of climate change.

This is the first truly ecosystem-oriented book on peatlands. It adopts an ecosystems approach to understanding the world's boreal peatlands. The focus is on biogeochemical patterns and processes, production, decomposition, and peat accumulation, and it provides additional information on animal and fungal diversity. A recurring theme is the legacy of boreal peatlands as impressive accumulators of carbon as peat over millennia.

Due to an awareness of peatlands as a diminishing resource,peatland conservation and rehabilitation has become an importantstudy area. Peatlands and Environmental Change offers a newapproach by considering peatlands as a whole ecosystem, and therebyprovides a better understanding of the importance and theconsequences of the functioning of peatlands. Contents include: * Peat and peatlands * Peat landforms and structure * Peatland hydrology and ecology * Origins and pest initiation * Peat accumulation * The peatland archive: palaeoenvironmental evidence * Autogenic change * Allogenic change * Peatland - environmental feedbacks * Values, exploitation and human impacts * Conservation management and restoration

This book provides a comprehensive and up to date overview of peatland ecosystems. It examines the entire range of biota present in this habitat and considers management, conservation, and restoration issues.

This book provides an introduction to peatlands for the non-specialist student reader and for all those concerned about environmental protection, and is an essential guide to peatland history and heritage for scientists and enthusiasts. Peat is formed when vegetation partially decays in a waterlogged environment and occurs extensively throughout both temperate and tropical regions. Interest in peatlands is currently high due to the degradation of global peatlands which is disrupting hydrology and contributing to greenhouse gas emissions. This book opens by explaining how peat is formed, its properties and worldwide distribution, and defines related terms such as mires, wetlands, bogs and marshes. There is discussion of the ecology and wildlife of peatlands as well as their ability to preserve pollen and organic remains as environmental archives. It also addresses the history, heritage and cultural exploitation of peat, extending back to pre-Roman times, and the degradation of peatlands over the centuries, particularly as a source of fuel but more recently for commercial horticulture. Other chapters discuss the ecosystem services delivered by peatlands, and how their destruction is contributing to biodiversity loss, flooding or drought, and climate change. Finally, the many current peatland restoration projects around the world are highlighted. Overall the book provides a wide-ranging but concise overview of peatlands from both a natural and social science perspective, and will be invaluable for students of ecology, geography, environmental studies and history.

In the past two decades there has been considerable work on global climatic change and its effect on the ecosphere, as well as on local and global environmental changes triggered by human activities. From the tropics to the Arctic, peatlands have developed under various geological conditions, and they provide good records of global and local changes since the Late Pleistocene.The objectives of the book are to analyze topics such as geological evolution of major peatlands basins; peatlands as self sustaining ecosystems; chemical environment of peatlands: water and peat chemistry; peatlands as archives of environmental changes; influence of peatlands on atmosphere: circular complex interactions; remote sensing studies of peatlands; peatlands as a resource; peatlands degradation, restoration, plus more.* Presents an interdisciplinary approach, with an emphasis on Earth Science, and addresses the need for intergration between subdisciplines and the developing of new approaches* Synthesizes the evolutionary, ecological, and chemical characteristics of major peatlands, as well as focuses on the environmental changes, from climate changes to surface ares changes due to human activities* Covers topical studies of worldwide interest and provides examples from many different countries

The book provides a review and synthesis of boreal mire ecosystems including peat soil properties, mire hydrology, carbon and nutrient cycling, and classification of mire sites. The emphasis, however, is on peatland forests as a renewable natural resource. The approach originated in northern Europe, because there, especially in Finland, operational scale forest drainage has a long tradition based on research aiming to maintain and increase wood production on peatlands. Whenever relevant, a closer look is also given to other countries in Europe, Canada, and the USA. The results of recent studies on different environmental effects of peatland forestry are also discussed in detail.

The essential habitat by habitat guide to conservation management for practitioners of ecology and land management.