NAWM Members' Webinar Series

The National Association of Wetland Managers (NAWM) holds eight webinars per year for members. NAWM Member webinars cover a variety of topics encompassing wetland science, policy, program implementation, and legal issues. These webinars, including recordings for past webinars are available to NAWM members.  

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Strategies and Tools for Peatland Restoration

ABSTRACTS

Erik Lilleskov
PeatRestore: providing the knowledge and tools needed to make informed decisions about peatland restoration in the United States.

The PeatRestore collaboration seeks to provide the knowledge and resources needed to manage peatland ecosystems sustainably. This includes developing map resources, restoration guides, and decision support/planning tools for managers and policy-makers. Peatland conservation and restoration are globally important goals because of peatlands’ potential to sequester and store carbon for millennia, provide habitat for plants and wildlife, regulate hydrology, and emit greenhouse gases (GHGs) when degraded. To provide information that can be used to identify possible targets for restoration, we have developed a peatland condition map for the conterminous US and Hawaii using existing GIS-based information. Of the 94,750 km2 of histosols and 13,533 km2 of histic epipedons (HE) analyzed, 7 % (7709 km2) were under agricultural use. Of 100,415 km2 of histosols and HE not in agricultural use, 19 % were within 150 m of ditches, roads, or railroads. Of mapped histosols, 38 % (36,042 km2) were legally protected from extractive use, and 635 km2 were in NRCS wetland easements. Based on IPCC tier 1 emission factors, the greatest reduction of CO2-e emissions per unit area and nationally would be from rewetting of peatlands under agriculture. In non-agricultural areas, rewetting peatlands affected by ditching alone is likely more cost-effective than if they are also affected by roads and railroads.   

Dominic Uhelski
Strategies and Challenges for Restoring Post-agricultural Peatlands

In post-glaciated landscapes along the temperate-boreal climatic tension zone, peatland and agricultural extents overlap and large areas of former peatland have been drained and converted to agriculture. The landscape homogenization caused by mass agricultural conversion depauperates biodiversity, habitat availability, and landscape resilience. In addition, peat soils under agriculture are large sources of greenhouse gas emissions, making them a priority for restoration actions to slow or reverse those emissions. These facts have seen some recognition and made agricultural peatland restoration a notable feature of green policy moves in Europe and North America. However, restoration of peat soils in post-agricultural settings is made more difficult because of the legacy effects of extensive alteration and need to accommodate ongoing agricultural activities in the surrounding areas. Due to these conditions, many early attempts at restoration have had limited success. How do existing methods of peat restoration work in post-agricultural sites, and what can be done to improve restoration outcomes in these challenging situations? This talk will review the challenges facing peatland restoration in post-agricultural areas, case studies of successful and failed peatland restorations, and describe existing and emerging methods to improve restoration success.   

Alex Moya
Mapping U.S. Peatlands: A New Tool to Conserve and Restore Carbon Sinks

The Pew Charitable Trusts, in collaboration with the U.S. Forest Service (USFS), Greifswald Mire Centre, and Michigan Tech Research Institute, is developing a national peatlands map for the United States. The map, expected June 2026, will display current and historic extent of peatlands, with an emphasis on the continental U.S., but with additional data for Hawaii, Alaska, and U.S. territories where available. The map will be used to identify intact areas where further protection is needed for these irrecoverable carbon sinks, as well as restoration opportunities for degraded peatlands that would reduce carbon pollution and restore other ecosystem services like flood mitigation. By refining existing USFS mapping efforts with data from under -represented peatlands (forested, coastal, and floodplain) and incorporating new advancements in remote sensing, we aim to improve the accuracy and utility of a national peatlands map for protecting and restoring these carbon sinks in the U.S.

BIOS

Erik Lilleskov is a research ecologist and project leader with the USDA Forest Service, Research and Development, based in Houghton, MI. His work spans the gamut from understanding how global change affects the fungal and microbial communities that regulate soil processes, to developing actionable science to facilitate informed ecosystem management. Over the past 15 years much of his work has been on developing the scientific knowledge, capacity, and science delivery products relevant to peatland ecosystem degradation and restoration. This work has been focused at local, regional and global scales, and includes mapping, microbial community studies, ecosystem carbon cycling studies, and management practices, including restoration. He believes strongly that collaboration and building communities of practice will enhance our ability to maintain healthy ecosystems and local economies, and seeks opportunities for scientists, managers, and policy makers to work together to achieve these goals. 

Dominic Uhelski is an applied wetland ecologist who uses biogeochemistry to understand how ecosystem properties - and restoration design - drive carbon and nutrient cycles, which in turn shape successional trajectories and restoration outcomes. His favorite scientific topics include restoration design, greenhouse gas flux, water quality impacts, and disturbance ecology, particularly fire. In his free time Dominic enjoys getting outdoors for hiking, biking, and climbing, or cozying up indoors to cook, brew, blast virtual aliens, or enjoy quality television.

 Alex Clayton Moya works to incorporate conservation and restoration of coastal blue carbon and peatland habitats in state and national climate policies for Pew’s U.S. conservation project. She leads efforts to engage primarily with state agencies as they seek to incorporate wetlands into their climate change planning, helping to connect science and research to the policy choices of decision-makers. Before joining Pew, Moya worked for the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency on nonpoint source pollution and Columbia River salmon issues in the Pacific Northwest. Earlier in her career, she worked on international environmental policy with an emphasis on wildlife conservation and served as a Peace Corps volunteer in Nepal. Moya holds a bachelor’s degree in biology from Bucknell University and master’s degrees in public policy and in natural resources and environment from the University of Michigan.

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