Open Data Science Europe Workshop 2021

Peatlands have been under severe pressure globally due to anthropogenic activities. In Ireland, approximately 90 % of the peatlands have been degraded to some extent due to these activities. Raised bogs account for approximately 35 % of the total peatland area and are present in high density in the midland lowland regions of the country. While the rest of the peatland area is occupied by blanket bog i.e., ~ 65 %. To achieve temperature goals agreed in the Paris agreement and fulfil the EU’s commitment to quantifying the Carbon/Green House Gases (C/GHG) emissions from land use, land-use change forestry, accurate mapping and identification of management related activities (land use) on peatlands is important.
In this study, land use (management impacts) were assessed using medium (Landsat-5, 30m) spatial resolution satellite imagery. However, due to persistent cloud cover in Ireland. It is difficult to map the landscape using optical imagery. Therefore, it was identified that the imagery acquired over a minimum of 3 years was suitable for generating a cloud-free mosaic. Landsat imagery was acquired for 3 different periods i.e., 1989-1991, 2004-2006 and 2018-2020. A cloud-free national scale mosaic was created for the datasets. Furthermore, a random forest-based classification approach was used to perform a land use classification on the imagery. For this study, four land use classes were identified and mapped: Industrial peat extraction, forest, grassland, and residual peat (hand-cut and other). The result shows that the majority (~90 %) of the industrial peat extraction sites are present on the raised bogs. Moreover, there has been a substantial change in land use in the past 30 years, with forest area depicting most of the change. These results are not only useful in determining the status of rehabilitation/ rewetting/ restoration activities but could also prove useful for such future activities and accurate quantification of C/GHG (Carbon, Greenhouse Gas) emission estimations from peatlands