On July 8, the Sixth International Field Symposium “West Siberian Peatlands and Carbon Cycle: Past and Present” ended. IFS RAS was the co-organizer providing the event. The program of the Field Symposium consisted of plenary and breakout sessions, field trips to the Kondin Lakes Nature Park, Surgut Polesye and the Mukhrino International Field Station. Photos and videos of all the excursions are available at the website of the event in the “Program” section. The program of the event took into account the peculiarities of the reports organization in connection with the pandemic, and some of them were carried out by the participants on-line. The Proceedings were published before the Symposium and will be posted in the Russian Science Citation Index database. In addition, selected papers will be published in the IOP Conference Series: Earth and Environmental Science, included in the Web of Science database.
IFS RAS staff directly participated in the symposium. On the opening day of the symposium a plenary report by A.A. Sirin on “Peatlands and anthropogenically modified peatlands: carbon, greenhouse gases and potential for climate change mitigation” was delivered, summarizing the results of IFS RAS long-term research in the conservation and restoration of peatlands against the global context of the problem in question. Several reports were made on the carbon balance of anthropogenically used peatlands and the possibilities for their restoration (presentations of the reports are available on the conference website at the link). The poster paper “Carbon dioxide fluxes in hayfields (drained peat soil): analysis of the use scenario” (Ilyasov D.V. et al.) was devoted to the search for optimal (in terms of reducing carbon losses, getting economic benefits from use, prevention of peat fires) ways of agricultural peatland use. Poster presentation “Annual estimates of CO2 and CH4 emissions from the peat extraction site (by the example of the Dubna massif in the Moscow region)” (Suvorov G., Sirin A. A.) highlighted the results of the ten-year monitoring of greenhouse gas flows at the peat extraction site in the Moscow region and demonstrated the analysis of the main environmental factors influencing their magnitude and duration.
The symposium contributed to the exchange of knowledge in the modern functioning of bogs, protection of their biodiversity and biosphere functions, as well as an assessment of the anthropogenic impact on bog ecosystems and the introduction of modern technologies for their rational use and restoration under conditions of global climate change.
