Peatland Rewetting In Nitrogen-Contaminated Environments: Synergies and trade-offs between biodiversity, climate, water quality and Society

Europe faces three major environmental challenges: greenhouse gas emissions, nitrogen pollution and biodiversity loss. Rewetting of drained peatlands is an essential ecosystem-based solution to avoid peatland greenhouse gas emissions, reinstall carbon sequestration, reduce nitrogen mineralization, enhance nitrogen removal, and/or restore peatland-specific biodiversity. PRINCESS project will explore to what extent nitrogen loads can guide decision-making when rewetting and delivers tools and guidelines for sustainable use of peatlands in Europe. PRINCESS will study feasibility and targeting of three main land use options for rewetted peatlands:

1. High-intensity paludiculture: the cultivation of deliberately established, selected wetland crops under intensive management with the goal to produce the highest quantity and/ or quality of biomass;

2. Low-intensity paludiculture: the regular harvest from spontaneously established vegetation for biomass use;

3. Wet wilderness: the absence of biomass harvesting and other on-site management with the focus on the provision of regulating services and wilderness biodiversity values.