Paludiculture is the productive use of wet and rewetted peatlands and considered a sustainable management technique. Given large emissions from drained peatlands, paludiculture is crucial to global climate action. However, at the moment, it is a niche innovation limited to pilot sites and smaller. To realize its potential, paludiculture needs to be further developed and upscaled in the next decades.
The transition from drainage-based peatland use to paludiculture is, however, a complex sustainability transition task that goes far beyond raising water levels. Developing paludiculture can learn from, and refine traditional uses of wetland plants and wet peatlands. However, such a transformation in farming practices also requires considering the economic and socio-cultural dimensions.
To address these challenges, Paludi4All aims to understand the socio-economic, climate mitigation and environmental impacts of paludiculture. The project will holistically assess the potential for climate change mitigation, environmental impact minimization, and creating jobs and income in rural areas. Moreover, it will identify innovative solutions for upscaling paludiculture in Europe. This will be achieved through Paludi4All’s interdisciplinary, co-creation-based systems approach that addresses the farm-, value chain-, and market levels and the governance context shaping these levels.
Within this project, the Radboud Institute of Biological and Environmental Sciences (RIBES) leads the research on assessing environmental impacts through life cycle assessment and estimating the current and future potential of paludiculture.
