Peatland

Peat is an organic deposit formed when dead plant material fails to decay because it is constantly or intermittently waterlogged. The living communities towards the surface become increasingly insulated from underlying mineral soils by the accumulating peat. The resulting formation is known as peatland or 'mire', the general term for a peat-forming habitat.

A peat formation may extend for no more than a few metres around a spring outflow, or may drape across entire landscapes of hundreds of square kilometres. From the National Peatland Resource Inventory it has been estimated that blanket peat of greater than 1 metre depth covers 14 per cent of Scotland.

Back