Search results
Oct 10, 2020 · In the world league of bog-blessed nations, ours ranks among the top 10. With fens excluded, Britain’s active bogs amount to about 8,880 square miles — or 9.5% of the entire UK land area. Include drained and degraded bogs and that figure rises to between 17,760 and 29,730 square miles or 9%-15% of Europe’s total peatland area.
- What Is A Peat Bog and How Does It form?
- Where Can You Find Peat Bogs?
- What Lives in A Bog?
Peat bogs are dense wetlands filled with partially decayed vegetation. The waterlogged conditions and the bog’s acidity prevents the vegetation from fully decaying when it dies. Instead, it builds up very slowly over thousands of years to become peat. Sometimes the peat can be metres deep.
You’re most likely to find bogs in cold, temperate climates, particularly in the Northern Hemisphere. In the UK, blanket bogs are commonly found in upland areas for example in Scotland and Ireland, where there is high rainfall but low drainage. Raised bogs are found more in the lowlands in agricultural landscapes or in low-lying basins, such as for...
Bogs are not easy places to live. But look again and you’ll find uniquely adapted plants in these acidic conditions. There are over 380 species of sphagnum moss and a whole range of carnivorous plants, like insect-eating sundews. Cotton grass flourishes and provides food for the large heath butterfly and black grouse. Golden plovers, dunlins and gr...
Aug 3, 2022 · The bog's 10,000-or-so year history is coming to an abrupt turning point. With climate change escalating, warmer summers and frequent droughts risk drying the bogs out, releasing their carbon. The ...
Peat has been forming across comparably wetter and more topographically variable UK uplands (as oppose to lowlands) for about 5-6,000 years creating landscapes where peat depth can vary from a few centimetres to an average maximum peat depth of 6 metres within a distance of less than 50-100 metres. Bogs support a less diverse range of species ...
Jan 2, 2023 · Ruth Taylor, agriculture and land use policy manager, says: "The Flow Country is Europe's largest blanket bog, a huge carbon store and a precious habitat for many rare plant and animal species.
Apr 9, 2021 · Britain’s wetlands may not have the global allure of the Amazon, but the health of the unglamorous bog has become fundamental for meeting climate targets. Past societies feared and revered the peat bogs—perhaps it’s time we did likewise. Eleanor Salter is a writer and activist. Once the sites of pagan legends and fantasy, peatlands are ...
People also ask
How big are Britain's bogs?
How old is a peat bog?
Is the UK a blanket bog?
Are Britain's peat bogs being eroded?
Where are bogs most common?
How much carbon does a peat bog hold?
Apr 9, 2023 · 09 April 2023 10:00am BST. Time moves in mysterious ways on the peat bogs of northern Britain. Here the black earth forms at just 1mm a year as it accumulates decaying organic matter. That means a ...
