Natural England (NE) has, today, published a new peat map for England. NE says that the advantages of having the new map are:
- It will help us calculate peatland greenhouse gas emissions more accurately. Emissions from degraded peat soils are currently estimated at about 2% of England’s total, and 3.5% of the UK total.
- It will improve our understanding of peatland condition and help us to plan conservation. 80% of England’s peatlands are currently degraded, making this an area in need of urgent action.
- Better data allows us to make more informed decisions about how to manage our landscapes, such as for water security and food security. Peat-dominated upland landscapes filter most of the UK’s drinking water, while the fertile Fenland soils in East Anglia are vital both for farming and as a store of buried carbon.
- The map will support Defra commitments on cleaning up our freshwater assets, turbocharging nature’s recovery and protecting communities from flooding. Peatlands play a critical role in environmental services by absorbing and cleaning our water, capturing carbon and providing a home to a wide range of specialised, rare and threatened species.
- While the map has not been specifically designed to inform Defra’s consultation on heather and grass burning on moorland in England, open until 25 May, it may be of interest to those wanting to input into the consultation.
According to NE:
“the map relies on the integration of AI techniques with other survey methods. It uses satellite imagery, pre-existing peat survey data, new field survey data, and data on geology, topography (LiDAR), and historic land use. These are then analysed using AI algorithms (machine learning and deep learning). Using these algorithms we have, without needing to visit sites in person, predicted where peat will be found and identified drainage channels right across upland peat landscapes.
Without needing to manually survey every peat deposit in the country, the England Peat Map combines modelling and real-world data to give our best prediction of where peat is. Our models are trained on over 300,000 data points from field surveys. They have an overall accuracy measure of over 95% for the extent of peaty soils and 94% for vegetation and land cover. As a national-scale map it will be a vital part of the decision-making toolkit for local scale management, though needs to be used in conjunction with local evidence for site-level decisions.”
This methodology is the same data-led geospatial mapping that underpins the Land use framework – about which see here – and is a product of the satellite habitat mapping technology that we discussed here and here. The reliance that will be placed on this data-led geospatial approach is clear from the NE press release which says that:
“This new peat map marks a step change in our ability to make national, regional, and local scale plans for England’s peatlands and peaty soils. It will be a key resource for government, for conservation organisations, and for anyone else working on the large-scale restoration of peatlands or the ecosystem services they provide. The map has been produced by the Natural Capital and Ecosystem Assessment programme as part of a nationwide survey of our land, freshwater and coastal ecosystems to produce a baseline of our natural assets.”
Out of curiosity, we carried out a spot check on a farm that we know well on Exmoor – i.e. one of the upland areas where there are large areas of peaty soils. Given the potential significant policy and regulatory implications, we were surprised and alarmed to find that the most productive land on that farm that has been re-seeded to an intensive 4-year cutting ley within the last three years has been included on the peat map with varying depths of peat up to 138 cm and a land cover of Calluna, Eriophorum and Molinia Bog. We therefore went back to the NE announcement to see what it says about the process of reviewing and correcting inaccurate data to ensure the reliability of the map and any decisions made in reliance on it. Nothing!
The concern is clearly that, as policy and regulatory decisions about land use are made in reliance on this and similar maps, land that has been incorrectly mapped may have restrictions placed on it that are both unjustified and difficult and costly to challenge at an individual farm level. This is clearly wrong and needs to be addressed. We will be asking questions about this via our Defra contacts and will add other posts here if and when we get some answers. In the meantime, we suggest that all farmers and landowners check the current map to ensure their land has not been incorrectly included on it. A link to the map on the peat map portal is here.
