Rewetting global wetlands effectively reduces major greenhouse gas emissions
- Journal:
- Nature Geoscience
- Published:
- DOI:
- 10.1038/s41561-022-00989-0
- Affiliations:
- 14
- Authors:
- 17
Research Highlight
Curbing greenhouse-gas emissions from wetlands
© Teresa Kopec/Moment/Getty Images
Rewetting dried-out wetlands is an effective strategy for lowering the emission of greenhouse gases.
Wetlands are major carbon sinks, storing more than a third of the carbon locked up in soil around the world, despite occupying only 6% of the total land area.
However, more than half of the world’s wetlands have been degraded by human activities, such as draining. This degradation releases carbon dioxide, methane and nitrous oxide to the atmosphere. But the exact relationship between the state of a wetland and greenhouse-gas emission was unknown.
Now, by conducting an inventory of greenhouse-gas exchanges from wetlands in various conditions around the world, a team led by researchers from SUSTech in Shenzhen, China, has found that emissions are smallest when the water level is close to the surface.
Restoration of dried-out wetlands could reduce the emission of about 10% of the predicted human greenhouse-gas emissions by 2100, the researchers estimate.
References
- Nature Geoscience 15, 627–632 (2022). doi: 10.1038/s41561-022-00989-0