Ukraine announced on Sunday that an audit had found up to 86,000 hectares of peatland wrongly recorded as restored. A preliminary scientific recalculation puts the annual difference at 3.3 million tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent — enough to erase the reported carbon uptake of the affected sites and require a rapid revision of the country’s climate figures.
The Office for Public Research Accounts ordered the review in July, before officials considered a proposed 22% reduction in peatland research grants. Its auditors compared project maps, satellite images and field visits at 56 monitoring plots. Of 19 plots registered as rewetted, 14 still had open drainage channels, the office said.
Drains contradict the map
The disputed plots lie across the Polissia peat belt, a low, wet region spanning northern Ukraine. Restoring peatland means raising its water level so buried plant matter decomposes more slowly; drainage dries the soil and can release stored carbon. The audit found that several project boundaries had been marked as restored even where channels remained open.
Runjhun Vig, a soil scientist with the Ukrainian Centre for Peatland Science, said researchers checked the records against satellite images and fresh measurements at 11 sites. “We found water still running out of places the database calls wet,” she said. “That changes the calculation, not just the label.”
If we leave the old map in the inventory, we will report carbon uptake where the field teams found open drains.
Runjhun Vig, soil scientist
The 3.3 million-tonne figure is a modelled annual difference, not a direct reading from every disputed hectare. The researchers combined soil-core tests with measurements of gas moving from the ground at sampled sites, then applied the results to areas sharing similar soil and drainage patterns.
Funding review takes a turn
The review began as a spending check on ₴460 million (about €9.2 million) in peatland research grants. The funding proposal would shift money away from field monitoring and towards satellite mapping. Audit director Hans-Jürgen Wiesner said the grants were not accused of being misused; instead, the review found that some projects had relied on maps that did not match conditions on the ground.
Wiesner said the office had asked the environment ministry to freeze any use of the disputed figures until a joint technical team completes checks. “We cannot treat a coloured patch on a map as proof that the drains have been blocked,” he said. The ministry has not yet said whether it will change its grant proposal.
A winter deadline for researchers
Pablo Fuentes, a hydrologist who took part in the field checks, said the open channels also leave some peat soils more vulnerable to drying and fire. He cautioned that the audit did not measure the probability of fires, but said teams need to inspect the most heavily drained sites before next summer’s dry season.
The science centre plans to publish site-by-site results by 30 November, then send revised estimates to the government’s climate office. Researchers will revisit 23 plots over winter, including nine where the audit could not confirm whether drains were blocked. The government must decide whether to preserve the old estimates or explain a major revision to its climate figures.
