Peatland Resource Centre
The Faculty of Agriculture, Forestry, and Home Economics supports research and educational studies through a variety of research stations. At the Devonian Botanic Garden, the Faculty has three main pursuits: the Prairie and Northern Plant Diversity Centre, the Microfungus Collection and Herbarium, and the Stephen C. Zoltai Peatland Resource Centre.
Named for Stephen C. Zoltai, n outstanding Canadian scientist who has made an exceptionally innovative and diverse contribution to our understanding of boreal and arctic environments, the Centre provides for the study of wetlands—any land saturated with water long enough to promote wetland or aquatic processes as indicated by poorly drained soils, hydrophytic vegetation, and various kinds of biological activity that are adapted to a wet environment.
For researchers studying the boreal forest of continental western Canada, the Mackenzie Valley, and specific Arctic Islands, the Centre has an aerial photograph library. In addition, the Centre is involved in creating inventories of the peatlands.
Inventories of wetlands and peatlands in Alberta, Saskatchewan, and Manitoba yield information crucial to government decisions about land management. Resource decisions about the diverse biological systems that are home to wildlife and hundreds of plant species are supported by the research, photography, and reports produced by the Centre. Conservation of peatlands is important for economic as well as ecological reasons since Alberta's peatlands are mined to provide peat for horticultural purposes.
The peatland, or muskeg, of western Canada, holds approximately 25 percent of the world’s terrestrial carbon and is important for regulating water flow from melting snow and storms and for replenishing the water table during times of drought. Acting as a natural filter, the peatlands cleanse the water that passes through them. Researchers are looking into the peatlands' role in the carbon cycle: this role has important implications in terms of decisions about the conservation of the peatlands, particularly when Alberta is addressing concerns raised in the Kyoto Accord.