3. Importance and user's needs

3.1 The importance of peatlands

Peatlands are areas of carbon-rich soil which form very slowly over many years when dead plant material fails to break down completely under waterlogged conditions. Most notably, peatlands can provide a substantial carbon sink, like woodlands. This stock of carbon in Scotland’s peat soils is huge. Estimates have varied over time, but recent estimates from 2020 and 2025 put this carbon stock at roughly two billion tonnes of CO2 equivalent. This is roughly equivalent to 50-years’ worth of Scotland’s overall territorial greenhouse gas emissions, as of 2023.

Importantly, this carbon is stored very slowly over time but can be lost more rapidly. It is estimated that roughly three-quarters of Scotland’s peatlands are in poor condition as a result of drainage, overgrazing, afforestation, extraction, development and other pressures. These degraded peatlands can act as a net source of emissions, rather than as a sink: collectively, peat soils in Scotland were estimated to have released around 6 million tonnes of CO2 equivalent (MtCO2e) in 2023, representing 15% of Scotland’s net GHG emissions.

But we shouldn’t just focus on carbon. We can also consider peatlands more widely as ‘natural capital assets’, which are capable of providing a range of ‘ecosystem services’. As well as capturing and storing carbon, healthy near-natural peatlands can reduce flooding and wildfire risk, provide high quality drinking water and support many of our rare or endangered flora and fauna.

Where peatlands are degraded, peatland restoration aims to put these areas on a path towards a more natural state. This can reduce GHG emissions and preserve the huge amount of carbon that these peatlands store, alongside multiple co-benefits listed above. The majority of peatland restoration in Scotland has been delivered by Peatland ACTION.

3.2 Users’ needs for statistics

Given the importance of Scotland’s peatlands, people in Scotland should have easy access to information to answer fundamental questions, such as:

• What is the total area of peatland in Scotland? Where are these peatlands?
• What are peatlands used for, and who owns or manages this land?
• What condition are Scotland’s peatlands in? How does this affect GHG emissions? What about other ecosystem services?
• How much peatland has been restored, and where? What were the benefits of this restoration?
• How much peatland is degrading or degraded?
• How do these figures compare with the rest of the UK, or internationally? How have they changed over time?
• How certain are we of our answers to these questions? How are these answers affected by definitions and assumptions?

Currently, users have to find and search through multiple data sources, which can sometimes be inaccessible or non-user friendly. This makes it very hard for users to:

• Find the right information
• Understand key messages, context, limitations and uncertainty
• Reconcile different sources and definitions
• Decide which are the most appropriate figures to use

We want to create a comprehensive, authoritative and up-to-date source of basic information on Scotland’s peatlands, similar to official statistics which are available for agriculture and forestry.

In simple terms, we can consider the needs of two main groups of users: general users and expert users:

• General users require key findings, presented in a user-friendly and accessible manner, to give a high-level overview of the state of Scotland’s peatlands and to show progress in protecting, managing and restoring peatland. For instance, this may include members of the public, environmental organisations or local and national government.
• Expert users require more granular information, including spatial data, to inform decision making. These expert users may be involved directly in land management on peatlands, peatland conservation, research or policy making.

We have listed examples of potential users of these statistics at the end of this document. Routine user engagement is being undertaken to help guide the development process, which will seek to balance user needs, data availability, data quality, and the resources required to generate the statistics.