• September 4, 2024

From parched peatland to Water Horsetail marsh in just 1 year

Within LIFE Multi Peat, a stretch of overgrown peatland was reopened to allow the ditches to be filled in and to give peat-forming vegetation another chance. In just one year, a Water Horsetail marsh is already spontaneously appearing here; the ditches even have yet to be filled in. a beautiful illustration of the resilience of a peat system and the very high nature potential present here.

A year ago, this part of the valley still contained meters-high Bramble domes, tree and shrub stands, and the remaining herbaceous vegetation consisted mainly of Reed Sweet Grass. These trees and shrubs are at the same time big water guzzlers. As a result, not only did the vegetation quality decline, but the peat itself gradually dried out further and degraded. On top of that, in this part of the Valley of the Grote Beek, we found the thickest peat layer. Whereas in the largest parts of the valley the peat consists mainly of Alder (thus indicating that alder swamp forest has been present throughout 1000's of years), here we found mainly reed/sedge peat and at the bottom of the peat layer a thick layer of brown moss peat. A sign that this part of the valley has almost always been naturally open. We therefore decided to open up this part. 

Last year, the LIFE Multi Peat team started removing shrubs from this overgrown fen. Not everything has been restored here yet, only part of it has been made open, an artificially raised area still needs to be excavated, some ponds still need to be filled and the existing drainage ditches also need to be closed to restore the hydrology here. Nevertheless, a completely different vegetation developed here in no time at all. Today, less than a year later, the whole plot is filled with Water Horsetail, a rare species characteristic of mineral-rich seeps and an indicator species of transition mires (7140), like we know from the Valley of the Zwarte Beek in Koersel. 

This Water Horsetail marsh is only the beginning in the development of vegetation, the potential here lies a lot higher, which is why we are also continuing with the other restoration works. However, it does show the immense resilience of a peat system and how nature restoration can sometimes also deliver very quick results. We are curious to see what will appear here during the coming years, but it looks very promising.