DUWC Research News

DUWC Project Studies Carbon Sequestration Potential

in Restored North Carolina Pocosins

The Duke University Wetland Center has received a $395,542 grant from the US Fish and Wildlife Service for the project “Carbon Sequestration Benefits of Peatland Restoration.”

The three-year project will study and quantify the anticipated benefits of peatland restoration in the USFWS-run Pocosin Lakes National Wildlife Refuge in North Carolina.

Outside the Florida Everglades, the primary type of peatland found in the southeastern United States is the pocosin, an evergreen shrub bog located on peat deposits. There were originally over 900,000 ha of pocosin peatlands on North Carolina’s coastal plain, but many pocosins were drained during the 20^th Century to convert the land for agriculture, silviculture, and peat mining. Today, less than a third of pocosins remain in their natural state.

The drained pocosins lost much of their ability to retain carbon, nitrogen, and metals, which were released back into the atmosphere and adjacent waters.

When drained pocosins southeast of Lake Phelps, NC were incorporated into the newly established Pocosin Lakes National Wildlife Refuge in 1990, refuge managers began restoring peatland water levels. Restoring the pocosins to a more natural state is expected to sequester tons of nutrients (including nitrogen and carbon) and prevent runoff of ions and heavy metals (e.g., mercury) into adjacent estuaries.

Verification and quantification of the expected environmental benefits of restored peatlands will be important for effective ecosystem management and promotion of restoration efforts.

To this end, DUWC researchers have the following objectives.

1) They will quantify changes in soil carbon flux and nitrogen dynamics in response to restoration of appropriate hydrological conditions in drained histosols (dominantly organic soils such as bogs, moors, peats, or mucks).

2) They will complete a carbon, nitrogen, and mercury budget to determine storage and losses from refuge peatlands in natural state, drained state, and restored state.

3) They will use research data to quantify carbon and nitrogen sequestration benefits from the restoration work, comparing these to the benefits of other climate-change projects (e.g., reforestation or conservation tillage.)

The DUWC project contributes to the ultimate US Fish and Wildlife Service goals of improving water quality and contributing to climate-change solutions.