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Methane emissions from fens in Alberta’s boreal region: reference data for functional evaluation of restoration outcomes

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Abstract

The aim of the study was to document methane (CH4) dynamics from fen ecosystems in the Athabasca Oil Sands Region (AOSR) in northern Alberta to create a reference database for evaluation of peatland restoration and reclamation projects in the region. The study included three types of fens commonly occurring in this region: poor fen (open and treed), moderately-rich treed fen, and open saline fen (SF). We quantified CH4 fluxes, pore water concentration (PW[CH4]), and production potential together with ecohydrological variables that may influence CH4 dynamics over four growing seasons. Mean (standard deviation) fluxes for open and treed poor fen [99.8 (269.7) and 68.3 (118.8) mg CH4 m−2 day−1, respectively] were higher than for treed rich [32.8 (63.7) mg CH4 m−2 day−1] and open SFs [34.6 (91.3) mg CH4 m−2 day−1]. The total growing season CH4 emissions from these fens ranged between 3.7 and 11.3 g CH4 m−2. Methane production potential varied from 0.1 (0.1) µmol CH4 g peat−1 day−1 at the SF to 4.6 (0.8) µmol CH4 g peat−1 day−1 at the treed rich fen. The variability of CH4 fluxes and pore water concentration between study sites and years was mostly controlled water table (WT) and soil temperature indicating that these variables should be used to assess the expected CH4 flux in peatland reclamation projects. Large inter-annual variability in CH4 flux illustrates the importance of multi-year records for data used in functional evaluation of restoration outcomes.

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All data is available from the corresponding author by request.

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Acknowledgements

Funding for this project was provided by a Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada (NSERC) Collaborative Research and Development (CRD) Grant (#418557) to JP and MS co-funded by Suncor Energy, Inc., Imperial Oil Resources Limited, and Shell Canada Energy. The authors would like to acknowledge Canada’s Oil Sands Innovation Alliance (COSIA) for its support of this project. Funders had no role in study design, data analysis or decision to publish the results. We thank Peter Macleod and Mendel Perkins for help collecting field data. Suggestions from anonymous reviewers improved the manuscript.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Geography and Environmental Management, University of Waterloo, 200 University Avenue West, Waterloo, ON, N2L 3G1, Canada

    Aneta Bienida, Vinay Daté, Felix Nwaishi, Jonathan Price & Maria Strack

  2. Environmental Research Institute, University of Highlands and Islands, Thurso, UK

    Roxane Andersen

  3. Earth and Environmental Sciences, Mount Royal University, Calgary, AB, Canada

    Felix Nwaishi

  4. Department of Geography, University of Calgary, Calgary, AB, Canada

    Md. Sharif Mahmood & Maria Strack

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  1. Aneta Bienida
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  2. Vinay Daté
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  4. Felix Nwaishi
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  5. Jonathan Price
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  6. Md. Sharif Mahmood
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  7. Maria Strack
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Contributions

MS, MSM and RA conceived the field study and implemented the design. JP, VD, RA and FN conceived the incubation study. VD, RA, FN, MSM and MS collected data and contributed to data analysis. AB completed final statistical analysis and wrote the first draft of the paper. All authors edited the final manuscript.

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Correspondence to Maria Strack.

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Bienida, A., Daté, V., Andersen, R. et al. Methane emissions from fens in Alberta’s boreal region: reference data for functional evaluation of restoration outcomes. Wetlands Ecol Manage 28, 559–575 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11273-020-09715-2

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