Report on General monitoring (Action E6) in Boreal Peatland LIFE

The project monitoring aims at evaluation of the success of the restoration of Natura2000 habitats at three important hierarchical levels. At the highest level the restoration needs to be technically successful. With general monitoring (Action E6) we aimed to confirm this and to identify possibly unsuccessful sites early to allow actions to be initiated for their repair.

The general monitoring (Action E6) in Boreal Peatland LIFE was done following the monitoring plan prepared in action A3. Each restored site was visited two times, one and two years after the restoration. During each visit part of the in-filled ditches and built dams were inspected to make sure that the work has been technically successful. In addition the amount and flow patterns of water in the mire and big changes in vegetation, such as tree mortality, were observed. Special emphasis was put to inspecting the sites that are have been identified as critical places during preparation of restoration plans, typically ditches at the border of the N2000.

The general monitoring is by definition qualitative and based on general changes detectable by eye, i.e. quantitative data was not collected. During the visits notes were made on all observations that significantly deviated from the expected outcome of restoration.