Project leader: Prof. Dr. Torsten Sachs (GFZ German Research Centre for Geosciences)

Peatlands are highly complex and spatially heterogeneous ecosystems and current in-situ methods to quantify energy and matter fluxes are inherently limited in their spatial coverage: closed chambers typically cover ≤ 1 m² and provide spatially explicit, temporally discrete data, while Eddy Covariance (EC) integrates over few hectares at most, but provides temporally continuous measurements. Neither method is able to cover an entire peatland complex with all its heterogeneity in vegetation types and density, open water areas, and microtopography, nor do they allow for quantifying peatland energy and matter exchange relative to the surrounding landscape mosaic defining a larger region. Aggregation approaches for upscaling require that fluxes are known for all characteristic heterogeneity elements, while upsclaing via process based modeling demands far-reaching assumptions such as the closure of energy and water balances. Instead, here we use airborne EC deployed from an unmanned aircraft system (UAS) to provide spatially extensive in-situ energy and matter flux measurements covering both peatlands and their adjacent areas. In addition, B2 contributes Core Site EC data to RQ1.b, RQ1.c and RQ4.a and makes use of regional data (such as DAMM-GHG output, soil moisture, and vegetation cover fraction) provided by other projects in RQ4.b.