Millions of hectares of northern peatlands were drained for forestry, which has increased forest productivity in some areas, but not all. The future fate of these drainage ditches can be to:
1) clean them to ensure continued drainage,
2) hydrologically restore them to a more natural state, or
3) leave them unmanaged.
In fall of 2018, we added six stations to the Krycklan water quality monitoring network in a side-by-side comparison of these three different management options with the goal of determining their effects on water quality and quantity. We call this area “Trollberget” and it began with the EU LIFE program’s GRIP on LIFE Integrated Project that includes demonstration areas for the restoration of an unproductive drained peatland and best practices for cleaning of forest ditches.
