K.: The full greenhouse gas balance of an abandoned peat meadow

Abstract. Globally, peat lands are considered to be a sink of CO2, but a source when drained. Additionally, wet peat lands are thought to emit considerable amounts of CH4 and N2O. Hitherto, reliable and integrated estimates of emissions and emission factors for this type of land cover have been lack-ing and the effects of wetland restoration on methane emis-sions have been poorly quantified. In this paper we estimate the full greenhouse gas (GHG) balance of a restored natural peat land by determining the fluxes of CO2, CH4 and N2O through atmosphere and water, while accounting for the dif-ferent Global Warming Potentials (GWP’s). The site is an abandoned agricultural peat meadow, which has been converted into a wetland nature reserve ten years ago, after which the water level was raised. GHG fluxes were measured continuously with an eddy covariance sys