"Peatlands - fens and bogs - are key climate regulators. (Bogs are maintained by precipitation, but fens, which, in North America, occur in the Northeast, Midwest and Mountain West, depend on groundwater.) Their peat retains plant carbon that would otherwise decompose and be released as carbon dioxide. Despite covering only about 4% of Earth's land area, peatlands store a third of the world's soil carbon - twice the amount trapped in forest biomass."
"In relatively dry southern Colorado, they also provide a secondary round of water storage. The first round is Colorado's snowpack, which, as it melts, feeds groundwater that fens' spongy peat captures and later releases to dwindling waterways and drying landscapes after the snow is gone. But the steep and degraded bare patch at Ophir Pass no longer functions. Where sedges, mosses, bog birch and other wetland species should be thriving, white PVC groundwater testing wells dot the ground."
A high-elevation fen near Ophir Pass supports peat accumulation under perennial saturation, limiting decomposition and storing plant carbon. Peatlands, including fens and bogs, cover roughly 4% of land yet hold about one-third of global soil carbon, exceeding carbon in forest biomass. North American fens depend on groundwater and can be millennia old. In dry southern Colorado, fens act as secondary water storage by capturing snowmelt-fed groundwater and slowly releasing it to streams and landscapes. Degradation at Ophir Pass exposed bare soil, compromised plant communities, and required groundwater testing wells and erosion-control measures, complicating restoration on steep terrain.
Read at High Country News
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