Community based ecological restoration of peatland in Central Mongolia for climate change mitigation and adaptation

• Main Authors: Minayeva, Tatiana, Chultem, Dugarjav, Grootjans, Ab, Yamkhin, Jambaljav, Sirin, Andrey, Suvorov, Gennady, Batdorj, Oyunbileg, Tsamba, Batdorj
• Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
• Language: English
• Published: 2017
• Subjects: permafrost
• Online Access: https://hdl.handle.net/11370/5616f534-71e8-4628-b457-a9a7de05a091; https://research.rug.nl/en/publications/5616f534-71e8-4628-b457-a9a7de05a091; https://pure.rug.nl/ws/files/55389399/EGU2017_18238_1.pdf; http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2017EGUGA.1918238M

Peatlands cover almost 2 % of Mongolia. They play crucial role in regulation of key natural processes in ecosystems and provide unique resources to maintain traditional way of life and livelihoods of herders. During the last decades, Mongolian peatlands severely degraded both due to the climate related events and due to overgrazing. The peat degradation causes significant losses of carbon store, GHG emissions and is followed by changes in water balance and water composition. The issue arises if such a type of ecosystems as peatlands could be a subject for ecosystem restoration in this arid and subhumid climate. Could it be considered as measure for climate change mitigation and adaptation? With funding opportunities from the Asian Development Bank a pilot project for peatland restoration had been launched in 2016 in Khashaat soum, Arkhangai aimag in Central Mongolia. The pilot aimed to merge local interests of herders with global targets of climate change mitigation. The following questions are addressed: what are the losses of natural functions and ecosystem services of peatland; what are expectations and demands of local communities and incentives for their involvement; how should and could look the target ecosystem; what are the technical solutions in order to achieve the target ecosystem characteristics; and what are the parameters for monitoring to assess the success of the project? The comprehensive baseline study addressed both natural and social aspects. The conclusions are: most of peat in the study area had been mineralised and has turned to organic rich soil with carbon content between 20 to 40 %, the key sources of water - small springs - are partly destroyed by cattle; the permafrost disappeared in this area and could not be the subject for restoration; local herders understand the value of peatland as water source and had carried out some voluntary activities for water storage and regulation such as dam construction; nevertheless there is no understanding of functional particularities of peatland ...