The Canadian Land Surface Scheme including Biogeochemical Cycles

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Published July 23, 2025 | Version 1.0.0
Dataset Open

Peat-DBase v.1: A Compiled Database of Global Peat Depth Measurements

Authors/Creators

  • 1. EDMO icon Environment and Climate Change Canada, Climate Research Division
  • 2. EDMO icon University of Victoria, School of Earth and Ocean Sciences
  • 3. University of Exeter College of Life and Environmental Sciences
  • 4. ROR icon Université du Québec à Montréal
  • 5. EDMO icon University of California, Santa Cruz
  • 6. ROR icon Université Officielle de Bukavu
  • 7. ROR icon Pontificia Universidad Javeriana
  • 8. ROR icon Government of Manitoba
  • 9. Ministry of Water and Environment, Uganda
  • 10. ROR icon Makerere University
  • 11. ROR icon Adam Mickiewicz University in Poznań
  • 12. Laboratory of Ecology and Sustainable Forest Management, University of Kisangani
  • 13. ROR icon University of Gdańsk
  • 14. ROR icon Université du Québec à Trois-Rivières
  • 15. ROR icon University of Helsinki
  • 16. ROR icon Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations
  • 17. EDMO icon University of St Andrews, School of Geography and Sustainable Development
  • 18. ROR icon University of Waterloo
  • 19. ROR icon United States Department of Agriculture
  • 20. ROR icon Northeast Institute of Geography and Agroecology
  • 21. ROR icon University of Exeter
  • 22. ROR icon University of Queensland

Description

Peatlands are globally important carbon stores that face increasing threats from human activities and climate change impacts. Comprehensive peatland data are essential for understanding ecosystem responses to these stressors and mapping their past and current characteristics. Current peatland datasets remain limited due to poor representation in global soil mapping initiatives and the absence of a recognized, coordinated central repository for peat depth data. Existing compilations often contain errors, duplicates, and outdated observations, requiring researchers to repeatedly gather and harmonize data on a study-by-study basis. To address these challenges, we present Peat-DBase version 1.0—a harmonized, quality-controlled global compilation of basal peat depth measurements.

Version 1.0 of Peat-DBase comprises 204902 peat depth measurements from 29 sources spanning 54.933°S to 82.217°N, with a significant proportion of measurements in Atlantic Canada and Scotland due to the inclusion of two particularly large datasets focused on those regions. We supplement the peat study measurements with 94615 non-peat soil measurements to ensure comprehensive coverage consistent with the relatively low spatial coverage of peatlands globally. Despite the uneven distribution of peat depth measurements, Peat-DBase contains reasonable coverage of the major global peatland complexes in temperate and boreal North America and Europe, portions of Russia, the Amazon and Congo basins, and the Malay Archipelago, though gaps remain in the lower Amazon Basin, Eastern Indonesia, and Eastern Russia. From the current data, peat depths average 144 cm, although this is influenced by a predominance of measurements in the North Atlantic regions. Peat-DBase's deepest measurement is 3527 cm.

While sampling biases and measurement uncertainties exist, Peat-DBase provides an essential foundation for global peatland research. Peat-DBase is under active development and future versions will incorporate additional datasets, information on current peatland status, and improved positional uncertainty quantification. Peat-DBase eliminates the need for overlapping data compilation efforts while identifying critical observational gaps for future research.

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References

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