Dangerous without a quagmire: why are swamps being restored in Russia
Millions of hectares of marshes, including peat bogs, were drained in Russia in the twentieth century. The work, which was supposed to help expand farmland and forests and provide peat for power plants, was eventually recognized by many scientists as an environmental miscalculation. Drained peatlands have become a powerful source of greenhouse gases and now have a bad effect on climate stability, and biodiversity in these places has been lost. They also burn beautifully — everyone remembers the fires of 2010 in the Central Federal District. Modern Russia is forced to correct erroneous actions. How peat bogs are being restored now and what effect this work brings is described in the Izvestia article.
How swamps are restored
The Orshinsky Moss swamp in the Tver region is one of the largest natural sites where drainage was carried out in the USSR. The Petrovsky lakes are enclosed in the massif, which you just can't get to — only by water. And next to them are three villages, which were completely abandoned by the 2010s.
The place really isn't the most obvious place to live, and not just because of the incredibly complicated logistics. "The water in the canals was red, infused with peat bogs" — this is how these places are described in one of the stories in the magazine "Around the World" in 1971.
Although people lived here a long time ago, even before the formation of swamps, it was once a huge glacial reservoir from which rivers flowed. But peat was really noticed only in the twentieth century, when it was realized that it could be used on an industrial scale as a fuel.
This affected the current state of the Orsha moss in general and Petrovsky Lakes in particular — some of them disappeared, others turned into the same swamps against the background of active peat mining. The place that was turned into a peat desert is clearly visible on the maps.: It is dotted with a network of drainage channels and narrow-gauge railways. And if the Glukhoe and Orshinsky lakes are marked as identical blue reservoirs on the diagrams, then on satellite images it is noticeable that the second one, surrounded by this grid, has already turned completely green, covered with duckweed.
— In the 20th century, due to the active peat extraction, the southwestern part of the peat bog - about 25 thousand hectares out of 70 thousand hectares — completely dried up. Mining has been preserved only in small areas. The rest of the drained area is abandoned and poses a constant fire threat," says Arnest YunIrus, Project Manager for sustainable development (the company is engaged in the restoration of marshes in the Tver region, in April the project received the status of a "Partner of National Projects of Russia") Sofia Popova.
This is where the secondary irrigation works are being carried out. Technically, this looks like the destruction of economic activity during the Soviet period: specialists are blocking the drainage network, which, despite the abandonment of the territory, actually continues to work. For this purpose, ground dams are used, created mainly from local materials, including the same peat. The construction work on the irrigation was completed in 2025, and now only corrective measures are being taken.
The outflow of water from the territory stops in order to create conditions as close as possible to natural swamps, where excess moisture plays a major role.
— The main source of water is precipitation: snow and rain. The peat bog does not receive recharge from the underlying mineral rocks. There is no water intake from rivers and lakes, nor artesian wells in the project. The whole logic is based on restoring the natural functions of the swamps and accelerating the processes of self-healing. The water level rises gradually, without sudden jumps. And the ecosystem adapts during this time — after a year or two, engineering structures are overgrown with local flora and become an integral part of the landscape," explains Sofia Popova.
Then the process proceeds almost without human intervention: typical plants return to the swamps, and a new hydrological regime is being formed. The complete restoration of the marshes will occur when they have a stable high water level, moisture—loving plants and characteristic fauna return - this is a long process, therefore, the Arnest YunIrus project is designed for 10 years. However, the first climate effects are expected as early as 2026.
Why restore peat bogs
Peat fires are one of the most acute problems for the local population, the flora and fauna of the region, as well as for global climate processes, explains Sofia Popova. During them, huge amounts of greenhouse gases are released, and this significantly affects climate change.
— And during the severe drought of 2008-2014, peat bogs caused catastrophic smog that covered Central Russia, including Moscow. That is why watering drained peatlands is one of the most direct and effective ways to simultaneously reduce greenhouse gas emissions and solve the most important regional problems, the expert believes.
Many peat mines were abandoned after the completion of mining, they were not reclaimed. And it was they who then turned out to be the sources of those peat fires, recalls Maxim Napreenko, senior researcher at the Laboratory of Atlantic Geology at the P.P. Shirshov Institute of Oceanology of the Russian Academy of Sciences, leading researcher at the I. Kant BFU.
With secondary irrigation, drained peatlands, according to Sofia Popova, cease to be a source of emissions and return to their natural function of carbon storage. When the water level rises, peat in an oxygen-free environment stops emitting CO2.
— According to the calculations of the specialists of the TSTD (Center for Sustainable Development Technologies. — Izvestia), the project partner, estimates the annual reduction of emissions from 1 hectare at 14.32 tons of CO2 equivalent. By 2034-2035, the cumulative effect of reducing emissions will amount to 170,419 tons of CO2 equivalent. After flooding, the risk of fires decreases dramatically — and peat can smolder underground even in winter! — says the expert.
In 1990-2023, greenhouse gas emissions from drained peat bogs in Russia amounted to more than 40 million tons of CO2 equivalent. This is approximately 3.5% of the balance of anthropogenic greenhouse gas fluxes in Russia's managed ecosystems, Anna Romanovskaya, Corresponding Member of the Russian Academy of Sciences, Director of the Institute of Global Climate and Ecology, cites statistics with reference to the National Cadastre of Anthropogenic Emissions from Sources and Absorption by Sinks of Greenhouse Gases of the Russian Federation.
— On a global scale, CO2 emissions from drained peatlands account for up to 14-18% of the total estimated balance of anthropogenic emissions and greenhouse gas uptake from terrestrial ecosystems, — says the interlocutor of Izvestia.
In this sense, the watering of swamps is a good measure to combat climate change. Although this work has a nuance: CO2 emissions are decreasing, but there is an increase in methane emissions, which is also a greenhouse gas. But it's still better to combat climate change.: methane has a relatively short residence time in the atmosphere — "only" 20 years or a little less, whereas CO2 has more than 100 years. Therefore, reducing carbon dioxide emissions outweighs.
In addition, the same work brings numerous other environmental benefits, continues Anna Romanovskaya. In addition to reducing fire risk, the restoration of biodiversity is reported: in other words, cranberries, cloudberries and animals for which this is a natural habitat will return to the flooded swamps.
The contribution of peat bogs to water filtration and flow regulation is also being restored. Swamps serve as an effective reservoir of excess water during heavy rainfall, snowmelt, or floods.
— In this context, they can be considered as a buffer water reservoir that receives excess moisture during periods of floods and snowmelt, and then gradually releases it into the ground, maintaining the groundwater level and feeding rivers. This is a critically important regulatory ecosystem service that drained peatlands are completely or partially losing," emphasizes the Doctor of Biological Sciences.
The Ministry of Natural Resources of the Russian Federation told Izvestia that, together with the Federal Forestry Agency, Rosnedra, Rosvodresurs, the Ministry of Emergency Situations and the Ministry of Agriculture, they are doing a lot of work to identify fire-hazardous peat bogs in the regions: this is what the emphasis is on. A register of such places has now been created, with 58 sites in nine regions. The largest number is in the Central Federal District — 42.
The prevention of peat fires in the last 20 years has become the main driving factor in the secondary watering of unused peat bogs in the country, says Gennady Suvorov, senior researcher at the Center for the Conservation and Restoration of Marsh Ecosystems at the Institute of Forestry Sciences. The pioneer of large-scale irrigation works was the Meshchera National Park in the Vladimir region, where work began back in 2002. And after the catastrophic fires in the center of the European territory of the country, from the autumn of 2010 to 2013, 77 drained fire-hazardous peat bogs were flooded in the Moscow region. This was the largest secondary irrigation project in the Northern Hemisphere.
Now, according to the Ministry of Natural Resources, a roadmap for the inspection, identification and irrigation of such facilities has been approved. At the same time, watering of peat bogs is not included in any separate activities of the national project, therefore, working with them is the responsibility of the regions. This is one of the reasons why private companies are often involved in the process. The Orsha Moss irrigation project is also private, but it is registered in the national register of carbon units, which allows us to record and verify the achieved effect.
Was the drainage of peat bogs a mistake
The drainage of swamps in the USSR began in the 1920s and 1930s, and was especially active in the 60s and 80s of the last century. With his help, they tried to expand farmland, increase the area of forests, and improve land reclamation in a number of regions. And of course, the work was carried out for the extraction of peat as fuel for power plants. However, the environmental consequences proved to be very serious.
As a result, the drainage of peat bogs is sometimes referred to as a major environmental mistake of the twentieth century. In particular, in the work "Assessment of the transformation of a drained upland swamp (using the example of the Bakcharsky swamp area)," scientists from Tomsk State University and the Siberian Research Institute of Agriculture and Peat write that large-scale drainage of swamps was "a unique experiment of anthropogenic influence on swamp ecosystems," the consequences of which are "ambiguous and need systematic study and understanding.". And the Soviet and Russian scientist Andrei Sirin argued in his works that the benefits of drainage were often not achieved: for example, more than 4 million hectares of swamps were drained for forestry, but there was no expected significant effect.
Currently, Russia is the world's leader in the area of peat bogs — they occupy more than 8%, said Maria Medvedeva, Deputy Director for Project Activities, senior researcher at the Laboratory of Forest Bolotovology at the Institute of Forestry of the Russian Academy of Sciences. And together with small-scale peat lands, where peat is less than 30 cm, they fill more than one fifth of the country's territory.
According to the expert, at least 8 million hectares were drained for agriculture and forestry, as well as for peat extraction. In general, the proportion of drained and developed peatlands in the European part of Russia is only about 5%, but in some regions it may exceed 50%.
During the Soviet period, drained large depleted peat bogs were subject to reclamation, usually for agriculture, less often for other purposes, the Izvestia interlocutor recalls. But after the collapse of the peat industry in the early 1990s, reclamation practically stopped.
— According to international estimates, Russia is one of the largest sources of greenhouse gases after Indonesia and the EU from the areas of disturbed peat bogs, — says Maria Medvedeva.
However, it is impossible to talk specifically about the "transition from drainage to irrigation," Maxim Napreenko emphasizes. Peat continues to be mined both in Russia and abroad. Dehumidification is still necessary for this.
— Another thing is that attitudes towards depleted peat bogs have really begun to change. As a rule, they are now involved in irrigation activities, and more recently they have become the basis of climate projects for obtaining carbon units. One of these projects is currently being prepared for implementation at the Rosyanka carbon landfill in the Kaliningrad region," the expert says.
Environmental mistakes are being corrected all over the world. For example, in the EU, 30% of degraded peatlands are going to be watered by 2030, and up to 50-90% by 2050. And in Indonesia, after the catastrophic fires of 2015, a special agency BRGM was created to restore 1 million hectares of peat bogs.
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