Beyond the forests: peatlands as overlooked carbon stores in coastal British Columbia

Abstract Peatlands are significant carbon stores, and yet their carbon stocks in coastal British Columbia, Canada, remain largely unquantified. We conducted a field assessment to estimate above- and belowground carbon stocks at six peatland sites across the coast of British Columbia. These values, together with data from the Canadian Peat Profile Database, were compared with regional aboveground carbon stock estimates of the upland forests. We found that coastal peatlands store approximately three to five times more carbon per area than adjacent temperate rainforests. Extrapolating these numbers to regional sums is hampered by lacking precise information about the peatland extent of the region. Assuming peatlands cover about 5% of coastal BC, they store at least 370 Mt C, which is about 20% of the upland forest C stock. These results underscore the importance of peatlands, and highlight a need for further assessment of peatlands in this region.