Rewetting is the most effective way to reduce greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions from drained peatlands and must significantly contribute to the implementation of the Paris Agreement on Climate within the land sector. In 2010–2013, more than 73 thousand hectares of fire-prone peatlands were rewetted in the Moscow Region (the hitherto largest rewetting program in the Northern Hemisphere). As the Russian Federation has no national accounting of rewetted areas yet, this paper presents an approach to detect them based on multispectral satellite data verified by ground truthing. We propose that effectively rewetted areas should minimally include areas with wet grasslands and those covered with water (cf. the IPCC categories “rewetted organic soils” and “flooded lands”). In 2020, these lands amounted in Moscow Region to more than 5.3 and 3.6 thousand hectares, respectively. Assuming that most rewetted areas were former peat extraction sites and using IPCC default GHG emission factors, an overall GHG emission reduction of over 36,000 tCO₂-eq year⁻¹ was calculated. We furthermore considered the uncertainty of calculations. With the example of a 1535 ha large rewetted peatland, we illustrate the estimation of GHG emission reductions for the period up to 2050. The approach presented can be used to estimate GHG emission reductions by peatland rewetting on the national, regional, and object level.

Swamp forests have been insufficiently studied yet in comparison with thoroughly examined carbon pools and greenhouse gas fluxes of peat bogs. This is primarily since the GHGs in swamp forests have huge spatial (due to the developed microrelief) and temporal variations (due to strong fluctuations in the groundwater level (GWL)). This significantly complicates their study, producing ambiguous results, especially in short-term field research. From June to October 2013–2016, we measured soil respiration (R_soil) in an alder swamp using the static chamber method at five microsites: depression (DEP), flat surface (FL), elevations (EL), tussocks (TUS), and near-stem tussocks (STUS). We carried out a computer simulation of the total R_soil for the season based on R_soil measurements, monitoring of GWL, and soil temperature. In 2013–2016, the average R_soil values (mgC m⁻² h⁻¹ ± σ) on DEP, FL, EL, TUS and STUS comprised 54 ± 50, 94 ± 72, 146 ± 89, 193 ± 96, and 326 ± 183, respectively, whereas the total R_soil values for the season (tC ha⁻¹ season⁻¹ ± σ) comprised 2.0 ± 0.5, 3.5 ± 0.5, 5.3 ± 1.6, 5.4 ± 2.7, and 12.6 ± 3.2. According to the results of observations, GWL was at the level of several cm below the soil surface for most of the season. In 2014 and 2015, there were extra dry periods that led to a drop in GWL to a mark of 30–40 cm below the soil surface. Despite their short duration (2–3 weeks), these dry periods can lead to an increase in the total R_soil for the season from 9 to 45% in the TUS–EL–STUS–FL–DEP sequence.

The Mukhrino field station has participated in the national project on the inventory of carbon fluxes and pools in the terrestrial ecosystems of Russia since 2022. The development of a network of measurements of CO₂ fluxes and phytomass covered six types of bog ecosystems typical to Western Siberia. The gross ecosystem exchange (GEE) of the field-layer vegetation (medians for the period from the end of May to the end of July, mgC m⁻² h⁻¹; see errors in Results section) decreased in series: Sphagnum bog with sparse low pine trees (“Open bog”), ridges in ridge-hollow patterned bogs (“Ridge”), pine-dwarf shrub-Sphagnum bog (“Tall ryam”), hollows in patterned bogs (“S.hollow”, “E.hollow”) and pine-dwarf shrub-Sphagnum bog (“Ryam”): −220, −200, −125, −120, −109 and −86, respectively. Ecosystem respiration (R_eco) here was 106, 106, 182, 55, 97 and 136. The aboveground and belowground phytomass of mosses in this series varied between 368 ± 106–472 ± 184 and 2484 ± 517–6041 ± 2079 g/m², respectively: the aboveground phytomass of vascular plants and plant litter—15 ± 7–128 ± 95 and 10 ± 6–128 ± 43, respectively. According to the results of mathematical modeling, the best proxy for GEE, in addition to photosynthetically active radiation and soil surface temperature, was the aboveground phytomass of vascular plants (Ph_V), and for R_eco—Ph_V and the mass of the plant litter of vascular plants.

In the summer and autumn of 2017, anomalously high methane fluxes were measured using the chamber method on oligotrophic, mesotrophic, and eutrophic mires in the southern taiga in Western...