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Prediction of blanket peat erosion across Great Britain under environmental change

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Abstract

A recently developed fluvial erosion model for blanket peatlands, PESERA-PEAT, was applied at ten sites across Great Britain to predict the response of blanket peat erosion to environmental change. Climate change to 2099 was derived from seven UKCP09 future projections and the UK Met Office’s historical dataset. Land management scenarios were established based on outputs from earlier published investigations. Modelling results suggested that as climate changes, the response of blanket peat erosion will be spatially very variable across Great Britain. Both relative changes and absolute values of sediment yield were predicted to be higher in southern and eastern areas than in western and northern parts of Great Britain, peaking in the North York Moors of eastern England. Areas with high precipitation and low temperature were predicted to have low relative erosion changes and absolute sediment yield. The model suggested that summer desiccation may become more important for blanket peat erosion under future climate change, and that temperature was more dominant than precipitation in controlling long-term blanket peat erosion change. However, in the North York Moors, precipitation appeared to be more dominant in driving long-term erosion change. Land management measures were shown to provide a means to mitigate against the impacts of climate change on blanket peat erosion.

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Acknowledgments

This research was supported by the China Scholarship Council and a School of Geography, University of Leeds studentship. The UK Met Office provided MIDAS and UKCP09 data. Natural England and the Centre for Ecology and Hydrology kindly provided land and peat cover data. We thank the Deputy Editor and three reviewers for constructive feedback.

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  1. water@leeds, School of Geography, University of Leeds, Leeds, LS2 9JT, UK

    Pengfei Li, Joseph Holden & Brian Irvine

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  1. Pengfei Li
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  2. Joseph Holden
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  3. Brian Irvine
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Correspondence to Joseph Holden.

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Li, P., Holden, J. & Irvine, B. Prediction of blanket peat erosion across Great Britain under environmental change. Climatic Change 134, 177–191 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10584-015-1532-x

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10584-015-1532-x

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