December 2023 25 “Being able to use satellite imagery to look at soil moisture or water table dynamics across wider areas and longer time periods gives us a really helpful tool. It can help us to understand the health of our peatlands in Scotland and, in the future, also internationally, helping to improve peatland management and enable the preservation of these ecosystems as carbon sink at continental scales.” Dr Toča worked on this technique as part of her PhD programme, run jointly with the University of Reading, working with Professors Tristan Quaife and Keith Morrison, and the Hutton’s Dr Alessandro Gimona and his team who work on wider soil monitoring programmes using various types of satellite data. The technique Dr Toča investigated uses radar backscatter data from the ESA’s Copernicus SENTINEL-1 satellites. The backscatter data varies based on moisture conditions in the peatland, which enables it to be used to infer what moisture changes might be happening on the ground. “This means we can not only look at current peatland condition, but also adapt this method to monitor the success of peatland restoration projects, look at trends over time and potentially underpin carbon credits that are now starting to be used to finance restoration schemes,” she explains. It is hoped that the system, could be expanded to monitor wider areas of peatland, across Scotland, but also Europe and globally. The technique was tested across 11 sites at the RSPB’s Forsinard Flows Nature Reserve, in Caithness and Sutherland, which is part of one of the largest areas of blanket bog in the world. Crucially, it has peatland restoration projects dating back to the 1990s, making it a unique testing ground. Dr Toča’s research was published in the journal Remote Sensing. The article can be accessed here: https://www.mdpi. com/2072-4292/15/7/1900 Linda Toca Colour enhanced composite image of Sentinel-1 radar satellite data over northern Scotland
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