Abstract
Peatlands drained for agriculture and other uses release substantial carbon dioxide. Many countries estimate these emissions using the 2014 IPCC Tier 1 emission factors. Here we calibrated an ecosystem model with data from two cultivated peatland sites in Norway and simulate carbon dioxide emissions at 50 sites nationwide for 2001–2022. Model results showed that carbon dioxide emissions were strongly controlled by water table depth and aligned well with observations from other European peatlands of similar climate zones. Crucially, the Tier 1 emission factor matched our simulations only under very deep water tables (< –0.7 m), but overestimated emissions by 31–88% when water levels ranged from –0.7 m to –0.3 m. This indicates that Tier 1 methods may overstate emissions from cultivated peatlands in cool temperate and boreal regions, inflating estimates of mitigation potential. Tier 2 or 3 approaches can reduce uncertainty but require more field data.
Similar content being viewed by others
Data availability
Model files with observation data, model inputs and parameter settings are archived on Zenodo (https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.13353432, see Table S2 for the description of the files).
Code availability
All code used to generate the figures is archived on Zenodo (https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.19018379).
References
Minasny, B. et al. Mapping and monitoring peatland conditions from global to field scale. Biogeochemistry 167, 383–425 (2023).
Salm, J. O., Kimmel, K., Uri, V. & Mander, Ü Global warming potential of drained and undrained peatlands in Estonia: a synthesis. Wetlands 29, 1081–1092 (2009).
Maljanen, M. et al. Greenhouse gas balances of managed peatlands in the Nordic countries—present knowledge and gaps. Biogeosciences 7, 2711–2738 (2010).
Kluge, B., Wessolek, G., Facklam, M., Lorenz, M. & Schwärzel, K. Long-term carbon loss and CO2-C release of drained peatland soils in northeast Germany. Eur. J. Soil Sci. 59, 1076–1086 (2008).
Lie, O. Norges torvressurser. Jord og. Myr 6, 127–133 (1982).
Løddesøl, A. Myrene i næringslivets tjeneste (Grøndahl & Søns Forlag, 1948).
Bárcena, T. G., Grønlund, A., Toole, A. O. & Rasse, D. Utredning: Karbonbalansen i dyrket mark. 156–175 (NIBIO, 2016).
Kløve, B. The Effect of Peatland Drainage and Afforestation on Runoff Generation: Consequences on Floods in River Glomma (Oslo, 1999).
Norwegian Environment Agency, Statistics Norway & Norwegian Institute of Bioeconomy Research. Greenhouse Gas Emissions 1990-2023 National Inventory Document (2025).
IPCC. 2013 Supplement to the 2006 IPCC Guidelines for National Greenhouse Gas Inventories: Wetlands, Hiraishi, T., Krug, T., Tanabe, K., Srivastava, N., Baasansuren, J., Fukuda, M. and Troxler, T.G. (eds). 354. 22 (IPCC, Switzerland, 2014).
Eggelston, S., Buendia, L., Miwa, K., Ngara, T. & Tanabe, K. 2006 IPCC Guidelines for National Greenhouse Gas Inventories (Institute for Global Environmental Strategies (IGES), 2006).
Zhao, J. et al. Global observation gaps of peatland greenhouse gas balances: needs and obstacles. Biogeochemistry 167, 427–442 (2023).
Evans, C. D. et al. Overriding water table control on managed peatland greenhouse gas emissions. Nature 593, 548–552 (2021).
Darusman, T., Murdiyarso, D. & Anas, I. Effect of rewetting degraded peatlands on carbon fluxes: a meta-analysis. Mitig Adapt Strat Gl 28, 10 (2023).
Günther, A. et al. Prompt rewetting of drained peatlands reduces climate warming despite methane emissions. Nat Commun 11, 1644 (2020).
Lees, K. J. et al. A model of gross primary productivity based on satellite data suggests formerly afforested peatlands undergoing restoration regain full photosynthesis capacity after five to ten years. J. Environ. Manag. 246, 594–604 (2019).
Premrov, A., Wilson, D., Saunders, M., Yeluripati, J. & Renou-Wilson, F. CO2 fluxes from drained and rewetted peatlands using a new ECOSSE model water table simulation approach. Sci. Total Environ. 754, 142433 (2021).
Lippmann, T. J. R. et al. Peatland-VU-NUCOM (PVN 1.0): using dynamic plant functional types to model peatland vegetation, CH4, and CO2 emissions. Geosci. Model Dev. 16, 6773–6804 (2023).
He, H. X., Strachan, I. B. & Roulet, N. T. Simulating ecosystem carbon dioxide fluxes and their associated influencing factors for a restored peatland. Biogeosciences 22, 1355–1368 (2025).
He, H. X. & Roulet, N. T. Improved estimates of carbon dioxide emissions from drained peatlands support a reduction in emission factor. Commun Earth Environ 4, 436 (2023).
Duan, W. Z. et al. Seasonal and Diurnal patterns of methane emissions from a northern pristine peatland in the last decade. Global Biogeochem Cy 39, e2025GB008518 (2025).
Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). Climate Change 2013 – The Physical Science Basis: Working Group I Contribution to the Fifth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9781107415324 (Cambridge University Press, 2014).
Strack, M., Bona, K. A. & Liang, C. A first assessment of greenhouse gas emissions from agricultural peatlands in Canada: evaluation of climate change mitigation potential. Wires Clim Change 16, e925 (2025).
Alm, J. et al. Emission factors and their uncertainty for the exchange of CO2, CH4 and N2O in Finnish managed peatlands. Boreal Environ. Res. 12, 191–209 (2007).
Eggleston, H. S., Buendia, L., Miwa, K., Ngara, T. & Tanabe, K. 2006 IPCC Guidelines for National Greenhouse Gas Inventories (IGES, Japan, 2006).
Evans, C. et al. Implementation of an Emissions Inventory for UK Peatlands (Centre for Ecology and Hydrology, 2017).
Tiemeyer, B. et al. A new methodology for organic soils in national greenhouse gas inventories: Data synthesis, derivation and application. Ecol. Indic. 109, 105838 (2020).
Frolking, S. et al. Modeling northern peatland decomposition and peat accumulation. Ecosystems 4, 479–498 (2001).
Weldon, S. et al. Klimatiltak for å Redusere Klimagassutslipp fra Drenert Organisk Jordbruksjord NIBIO report (NIBIO, 2024).
Kuzyakov, Y. & Domanski, G. Carbon input by plants into the soil. Rev. J. Plant Nutr. Soil Sc. 163, 421–431 (2000).
Nielsen, O.-K. et al. Denmark’s National Inventory Report 2023. Emission Inventories 1990-2021 - Submitted under the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change. (2023).
Kasimir, Å, He, H. X., Coria, J. & Nordén, A. Land use of drained peatlands: Greenhouse gas fluxes, plant production, and economics. Glob. Change Biol. 24, 3302–3316 (2018).
Bianchi, A., Larmola, T., Kekkonen, H., Saarnio, S. & Lång, K. Review of greenhouse gas emissions from rewetted agricultural soils. Wetlands 41 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s13157-021-01507-5
Zhao, J. et al. Freshwater wetland plants respond nonlinearly to inundation over a sustained period. Am. J. Bot. 108, 1917–1931 (2021).
Liu, H. J., Wrage-Mönnig, N. & Lennartz, B. Rewetting strategies to reduce nitrous oxide emissions from European peatlands. Commun. Earth Environ. 1, 17 (2020).
Berendt, J., Jurasinski, G. & Wrage-Mönnig, N. Influence of rewetting on N2O emissions in three different fen types. Nutr. Cycl. Agroecosys 125, 277–293 (2023).
Basiliko, N., Blodau, C., Roehm, C., Bengtson, P. & Moore, T. R. Regulation of decomposition and methane dynamics across natural, commercially mined, and restored northern peatlands. Ecosystems 10, 1148–1165 (2007).
Belanger, G. & Richards, J. E. Growth analysis of timothy cultivars differing in maturity. Can. J. Plant Sci. 75, 643–648 (1995).
Nielsen, C. K., Liu, W., Koppelgaard, M. & Laerke, P. E. To harvest or not to harvest: management intensity did not affect greenhouse gas balances of Phalaris arundinacea paludiculture. Wetlands 44, 79 (2024).
Gunathilake, M. B., Takriti, M., Rivedal, S. & Kløve, B. Effects of mineral layer inversion on the hydrology and grass yield of a cultivated peat soil. Mires Peat 32, 17 (2025).
Mastepanov, M. Wirelessly Controlled Modular Automatic Chambers for Greenhouse Gas Flux Monitoring in Natural and Agricultural Ecosystems. Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=5475984, Preprint (2025).
Zhao, J. et al. Substantial mitigation potential for greenhouse gases under high water levels in a cultivated peatland in the Arctic. Glob. Change Biol. 31, e70599 (2025).
He, H. X. et al. Forests on drained agricultural peatland are potentially large sources of greenhouse gases - insights from a full rotation period simulation. Biogeosciences 13, 2305–2318 (2016).
He, H. X. et al. Factors controlling Nitrous Oxide emission from a spruce forest ecosystem on drained organic soil, derived using the CoupModel. Ecol. Model 321, 46–63 (2016).
Metzger, C. et al. CO2 fluxes and ecosystem dynamics at five European treeless peatlands - merging data and process oriented modeling. Biogeosciences 12, 125–146 (2015).
Senapati, N., Jansson, P. E., Smith, P. & Chabbi, A. Modelling heat, water and carbon fluxes in mown grassland under multi-objective and multi-criteria constraints. Environ. Model. Softw. 80, 201–224 (2016).
Ahlstrøm, A., Bjørkelo, K. & Fadnes, K. AR5 klassifikasjonssystem: Klassifikasjon av Arealressurser. (NIBIO Bok 5/2019. NIBIO, Ås, 2019).
Koch, J. et al. Water-table-driven greenhouse gas emission estimates guide peatland restoration at national scale. Biogeosciences 20, 2387–2403 (2023).
Acknowledgements
We thank Tobias Daugaard-Petersen and interns/students Birk Schulze, Emily Lenz, Marion Prabucki, Noemí Segura, Mia Celine Dørmænen Eriksen, and Anna Vegrim Ryvænge for field assistance. We further thank Miyuru Gunathilake, Synnøve Rivedal, Peter Dörsch, and Bjørn Kløve for their contributions to the PEATIMPROVE project which supported the field measurements at Farstad. We are grateful to Hanna Silvennoinen and Teresa Gómez de la Bárcena for helpful discussions that initiated the study. We acknowledge financial support from the MRV4SOC project, funded under the Horizon program (contract no. 101112754). This research was also supported by the Norwegian Research Council (281109 and 320270), the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation program (grant no. 862695) and the Norwegian Agriculture Agency through the Climate- and Environmental program (no. 279165), as well as NIBIO GF projects “PeatGHG” (53387) and “Environmental Modeling and Measures” (53391).
Funding
Open access funding provided by Norwegian Institute of Bioeconomy Research.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Contributions
J.Z., M.T., P.J., E.J., G.S., and J.Y. contributed to the conceptualization and methodology of the study. J.Z., M.T., M.M., E.F., C.K., D.K. and R.K. contributed to the installation, maintenance and coordination of field measurements. J.Z., M.T., E.J., M.M., S.W., K.F., K.B., J.R., and C.M. contributed to the data curation, analysis, and visualization. J.Z., M.T., and P.J. made model calibrations/simulations. J.Z. led the manuscript writing, and all the authors contributed critically to the final manuscript.
Corresponding author
Ethics declarations
Competing interests
The authors declare no competing interests.
Peer review
Peer review information
Communications Earth and Environment thanks Hongxing He, Narasinha Shurpali and the other, anonymous, reviewer(s) for their contribution to the peer review of this work. Primary Handling Editors: Huai Chen and Alice Drinkwater. A peer review file is available.
Additional information
Publisher’s note Springer Nature remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.
Supplementary information
Rights and permissions
Open Access This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article’s Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article’s Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this licence, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/.
About this article
Cite this article
Zhao, J., Takriti, M., Jansson, PE. et al. Potential overestimation of carbon dioxide emissions from croplands on organic soils in cool temperate and boreal regions based on a case study from Norway. Commun Earth Environ (2026). https://doi.org/10.1038/s43247-026-03464-5
Received:
Accepted:
Published:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/s43247-026-03464-5
