Donate

Forests

Peatlands

Where the peat map records peat: a global extent of organic soils.

PEATMAP · Xu et al. 2018 · peat extent

Peatlands
Map: Fix Planet from PEATMAP (Xu and co-authors, 2018). Colour marks a 0.02° cell that a mapped peat polygon touches. CC BY 4.0. Boundaries: Natural Earth.

What it is

The plate is PEATMAP (Xu and colleagues 2018, University of Leeds, CC BY 4.0): published peat polygons, drawn wherever a polygon touches a 0.02 degree cell. The UN Environment Programme Global Peatlands Assessment 2022 is the status report on condition, carbon and pressures. The Food and Agriculture Organization peatland pages and the Greifswald Mire Centre database are further context.

Why it matters

Peatlands cover only a few percent of the land surface but hold a large share of soil carbon. Drained or burned peat releases carbon that forests and climate accounts must treat carefully. FAO’s forest assessment finds that soil is the largest forest carbon pool, and peatlands hold much of that soil carbon.

How to read it

A coloured cell is touched by a PEATMAP peat polygon. The colour records presence. Use the UN Environment Programme assessment for global status and a national peat map when the question is a single country. Some peatlands carry forest, and some forest soils are mineral soils.

Sources

Open the source