Relation and change over time of CN-ratios throughout Swedish peatlands and in seven fertility classes

Peat covered areas makes up about one quarter of the total Swedish land area and are composed of accumulated organic material that can reach great depths. Nowadays, they are a valuable resource for man due to its many applications and functions. In Europe they are disappearing at an accelerated r...

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Bibliographic Details
Main Author: Ribeiro Cabral, Miguel
Format: Second cycle, A2E
Language:Inglés
Inglés
Published: 2012
Subjects:
Online Access:https://stud.epsilon.slu.se/4364/
Description
Summary:Peat covered areas makes up about one quarter of the total Swedish land area and are composed of accumulated organic material that can reach great depths. Nowadays, they are a valuable resource for man due to its many applications and functions. In Europe they are disappearing at an accelerated rate due to the increasing demands for energy, agriculture, horticulture and forestry. The purpose of this work was to observe the CN-ratio proprieties and trends for peatlands during the last 30 years and throughout different regions of Sweden. Included were C/N values observed within a specific fertility classification to see how they correlated with the different fertility classes. For the purpose, three soil datasets (1983-87; 1993-98; 2003-08) were used. It was observed as expected that the CN-ratios were low in the more fertile classes and high on the less fertile ones. However, there were no noticeable CNratio trends throughout the years. Within the different regions of Sweden the results were contradicting the expectations, since the C/N values were lower in the north than in the south of Sweden, as opposed to the N deposition values, which are much higher in the south than in the north.