DOI: 10.5061/dryad.2fqz61339
title: Data from: Afforestation-related fertilisation quickly turns barren cutaway peatland into a carbon dioxide sink

description: Energy peat extraction has declined rapidly in Europe in recent years,
 leaving thousands of hectares of land requiring after-use management and
 planning. A popular after-use option, afforestation, is understudied, and
 there is a limited understanding of its overall effect on greenhouse gas
 (GHG) and energy exchange. In this study, we present a multi-year record
 of eddy covariance fluxes of carbon dioxide (CO2), energy fluxe,s and
 surface albedo, chamber measurements of methane (CH4) and (N2O), and
 estimates of lateral carbon (C) losses from dissolved organic carbon (DOC)
 measurements from a cutaway peatland in Finland during the first three
 years of afforestation. The site was fertilised with wood ash, and
 2-year-old Scots pine (Pinus sylvestris) saplings were planted. Wild
 vegetation emerged at the site in the first summer after fertilisation.
 Satellite-derived leaf area index data showed clear year-on-year increase,
 and there was good agreement with changes in CO2 fluxes over the full
 study period. The albedo of the site increased with plant cover annually,
 resulting in negative radiative forcings and net CO2-equivalent (CO2-eq)
 removals. After being a source of CO2 in the first year (144 ± 20
 g CO2‑C m−2 yr−1), the site transitioned to a
 sink for the next two study years (−36 ± 12 and −19
 ± 19 g CO2‑C m−2 yr−1).
 Annual fluxes of CH4 and N2O were small but not negligible. Net annual C
 losses stopped after one year, where DOC losses offset CO2 uptake, and the
 afforestation resulted in a mean change in the annual net ecosystem C
 balance of 172 g C m−2 yr−1 and radiative
 balance of −688 g CO2‑eq m−2 yr−1 over a
 100-year time horizon. Cutaway peatlands typically remain long-term
 sources of C if abandoned, and our results indicate that the afforestation
 process can rapidly revegetate barren peatlands and halt net C losses.
description: # Data from: Afforestation-related fertilisation quickly turns barren
 cutaway peatland into a carbon dioxide sink
 [https://doi.org/10.5061/dryad.2fqz61339](https://doi.org/10.5061/dryad.2fqz61339) Supporting data to: Buzacott et al. (2025), Afforestation-related fertilisation quickly turns barren cutaway peatland into a carbon dioxide sink. Global Change Biology. This dataset contains measurements from Naarasneva, a former peat extraction site in Finland that is being afforested. In this dataset there are eddy covariance fluxes, chamber flux measurements, dissolved organic carbon concentration measurements and estimates of export, and satellite-derived observations of LAI and NDVI. The dataset covers the time period 2021 to 2024. Data are separated into different folders within `nsv_data.zip`. Each folder has its own ReadMe that explains the files in more detail. ### Satellite Contains a csv and netCDF file (spatial) of Sentinel-2 satellite-derived observations of leaf area index and normalised difference vegetation index. The observed LAI at Naarasneva from 2024 is included in a separate file. ### Eddy covariance Contains a csv file of eddy covariance flux and supporting meteorological measurements from Naarasneva. Ancillary data from the Finnish Meteorological Institute (FMI) stations is included in the file. ### Chamber Contains csv files for methane and nitrous oxide fluxes measured by the chamber method at Naarasneva. ### DOC Contains csv files of observed dissolved organic carbon concentrations, estimates of specific discharge collected from Finnish Environment Institute (SYKE) measured catchments.