These landscapes also do much more than store carbon. In Ireland and the UK, peatlands are responsible for. More than 880 square miles of peatlands also provide drinking water to approximately 71.4 million people around the globe. In addition, peatlands are home to endemic and threatened plant and animal species, which also play a role in storing carbon and holding reservoirs of water.
“Generally, at present, we can make more money from a drained peatland than a healthy, waterlogged one,” says Cole. “Draining a peatland makes it act more like the fields that we’re [accustomed] to farming and producing food from. We can also damage peatlands if we destroy the plants that are growing in them, since it is the plants that produce the organic matter that creates peat in the first place.
The environmental impact of drained or damaged peatlands is multifold. Not only will they stop locking in carbon, but they will also release the carbon that they have been storing. The peatland will also be less capable of holding on to moisture, affecting its water quality and quantity. Therefore, it’s important to avoid draining peatlands for whatever purpose as much as possible.peat, giving it the characteristic smoky,flavor.
”During the malting process, germinated barley grains are slowly dried under high temperatures over a day or so,” says Cole. “Peat is burnt to create smoke, which contains aromas that the barley grains absorb and later release when the grains are mixed with water in the mashing stage.”its composition, which could potentially influence the flavor as well.
“With peat accumulating at an average of 1 millimeter of depth per year, even cutting a block of peat of 30 centimeter depth would take 300 years to replace through natural peat accumulation,” says Cole. “And there aren’t any ways we know to significantly speed up this process. So the whisky industry, as a whole, is likely using peat more quickly than it can regrow.”
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