Can anyone give me suggestion on how to map peat soil / peat dome quickly and accurately in a wide area. The map also includes the thickness of the peat layer. Thank you.
Sigit
May be the method for this is still not elaborated?
I think you could try to:
1) Select areas with peaty soils;
2) Observe satellite photos of these areas available in various services, such as Google Earth and other similar - it is necessary to select date of photo (in Google Earth you can display photos from different dates) with greatest differences within selected area;
3) Download satellite data most close to the selected date. Many of such data are free, for example from LANDSAT, NOAA and recently - Sentinel (in future, it begun to function in recent months, as far as I know, the obtaining the data from Sentinel is still difficult due to certain technical issues).
4) Based on satellite data, you select the sites with most contrasting and also intermediate values and check the thickness of peat layer. It is possible even with hand auger - my colleague managed to auger a peat layer as thick as 11 m (I think, at least two persons were needed to do it).
But certainly other ideas may be much better. Regards.
Dear Sigit,
The first question is the scale. Do you plan to map at a 1:10 000 scale or coarser? The mapping depends on your goals, how detailed map do you need? Do you have the sufficient time and resources for such a detailed map? What is the average depth of the peaty layer? Does it go as far as 11 meters or it is "only" 1-2 meters deep?
I would definitely make a field trip to find out the average depth of the peaty layer and the heterogeneity of the landscape.
A relief map would be very useful. Are you mapping on a lowland/highland condition? It is possible that a relief map can help you to outline how far the peaty areas stretch e.g. from/above the water sources that resulted in their formation. Making some cross sections (small catenas) by an auger might help you getting an idea what is the situation on your peatland.
So, generally, I would follow a normal soil mapping methodology that mainly differs in the frequency of the sampling based on the scale you choose.
Best regards, Csaba
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