Rebekka is a peatland research leader, with over 20 years of experience in research projects spanning multiple disciplines including ecology, atmospheric sciences, remote sensing, social sciences and in bridging science and policy. She has authored over 60 peer-reviewed publications, as well as numerous research reports, two book chapters and interactive media content (such as included in the Virtual Peatland Pavilion [5] for the UNFCCC COP26).
She currently leads multiple large scale research projects (see list below) that aim to deliver better tools to understand the impacts of climate change on many aspects of peatland functioning and to evaluate the impacts of partial or full rewetting and other management strategies for peatland management. This includes the overall management of the developing SCO2FLUX [6] network of long-term peatland monitoring sites (funded via a series of Capital equipment grants of £2.5mi from RESAS and Peatland ACTION over the period 2018-2022).
Rebekka serves as Assistant Editor for the European Journal of Soil Science, on the Technical Advisory Board of the UK Peatland Code and in the Peatland Scientific and Technical Advisory Group for Scottish Government.
The peatland team was recently shortlisted for the 2023 Nature of Scotland Conservation Science [7] award. Rebekka was a Co-I on the Implementation report [8] for peatlands into the UK Greenhouse Gas Inventory, led by Prof Chris Evans at UKCEH [9], which found that the overall greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions of peatlands could exceed the equivalent of around 20 megatonnes of CO2 each year. She was also included in the ENDS Power List 2022 [10].
Her current research covers the following areas:
Previous PhD students with year of completion:
Helen Gordon (2007); Clare Trinder (2007), Hannah Toberman (2008), Pauline Currey (2008); Sam Quin (2012); Mike Whitfield (2012), Ully Kritzler (2013); Ainoa Pravia (2018); Kirsten Lees (2019); Linda Toca (2023).
Links:
[1] https://www.linkedin.com/in/rebekka-artz-861a1512/
[2] https://twitter.com/ArtzRebekka
[3] https://fediscience.org/@rebekka_artz
[4] https://orcid.org/0000-0002-8462-6558
[5] https://www.iucn-uk-peatlandprogramme.org/news/virtual-peatland-pavilion-cop26-unfccc
[6] https://zenodo.org/record/7386016
[7] https://www.hutton.ac.uk/news/hutton-shortlisted-rspb-nature-scotland-award
[8] https://naei.beis.gov.uk/reports/reports?report_id=980
[9] https://www.ceh.ac.uk/news-and-media/news/scientists-investigate-greenhouse-gas-emissions-degraded-peatlands
[10] https://www.endsreport.com/article/1755358/power-list-2022-rebekka-artz
[11] https://www.peatmothership.org/
[12] https://sefari.scot/research/projects/centrepeat
[13] https://www.gov.scot/publications/environment-agriculture-and-food-strategic-research-2022-27-overview/pages/underpinning-capacity/
[14] https://www.wethorizons.eu/
[15] https://www.hutton.ac.uk/staff/thomas-parker
[16] https://www1.uwe.ac.uk/et/research/cwcr/members/cwcrresearchstudents.aspx
[17] http://www.ashishmalik.co/people.html
[18] https://eri.ac.uk/members/21016208uhi-ac-uk/