13 sites from the Irish Midlands have been selected for this project. These sites are all unique, with different agricultural management, topography, drainage features and peat/soil type.
Below is the distribution of sites across Ireland, with a focus on field at the margins of large industrial bog sites, or in perhaps previoulsy unmapped peatland area.
See each site below for for more information
Sites outline
Size: ranges from 1 - 2.5 ha
Have various agricultural management practices from intensive to wild
Represent a subset of peat soils under agricultural managment
Highly instrumented with sensors for monitoring water table depth and soil moisture
Extensive peat depth measurments taken on each site
In Situ Equipment
Sites have been instrumented with soil moisture probes, Water table monitoring wells, Peat depth measurments
Sections of each site has undergone rewetting via drain blocking and daming using novel plastic temperory dams
Photos are a combination of several field visits and show a selection of site conditions, infield equipment and damming operations.
Soil Sampling
Cores are extracted and samples taken to the lab for analysis
This allows us to classify each site in terms of peat type (Mineral rich fen, raised bog etc)
Sampling follows the Project Auger protocols
Samples are tested for minerals, ph, bulk density, carbon content along with several other indicators that will be used to classify each site into the national inventory
This will act as additional ground truth locations for geophysical surveys
Geophysical Surveys
Geophysics methods will be used to map and monitor the extent of peat soil and the success of rewetting across the sites
Methods include ground based elecrical methods and Drone based photogrammetry and radiometric measurments.