Fun day at the annual McMaster Ecohydrology Lab "Peat Retreat" at @nobel-water.bsky.social #peatlands #ecohydrology

A member of the public took a photo of the #peatland at Castell Nos in Wales 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁷󠁬󠁳󠁿 every Sunday this year and even sent me this video he made! I really love how people have embraced #PeatColours across the world

Annual Christmas GPS map art with Emma! Santa Gnome / Tomtenisse

McMaster University is inviting top-tier researchers currently working abroad to join one of the world's leading research institutions through the prestigious Canada Impact+Research Chairs program. 1/n research.mcmaster.ca/home/support...

New paper out in Science Advances today on A guide to assessing the impacts of climate change on landscape fire. There are thousands of papers on fire and climate change, and this paper discusses how fire, its drivers, and its impacts are modeled. www.science.org/doi/epdf/10....

I'm very excited to share the latest paper from the McMaster Ecohydrology Lab. A whole lab effort where we expand our discussion on Hydrological Feedbacks in Northern Peatlands to discuss how peat depth influences the strength of key feedbacks and peatland resilience. Check it out in Ecohydrology!

Excited to announce that our latest #SurvivalOfTheDeepest paper was just published! Read more about it here ⬇️

A decade ago, we published our highly cited "Hydrological Feedbacks in Northern Peatlands" paper in Ecohydrology. Today the sequel just dropped! "Hydrological Feedbacks in Northern Peatlands 2: Peat Depth as a Control on Peatland Resilience" onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/... 1/3

On behalf of the McMaster Ecohydrology Lab I'm happy to announce the winner of the 2025 #NobelPeatPrize for top Intl #PeatPaper Congrats to: Nijp et al. "Ecohydrological feedbacks increase water storage, streamflow, and resilience of natural peatlands" Journal of Hydrology #Peatlands

I'm recruiting a #PhDstudent ! Deadline Feb 10th! Explore how forest management shapes peatlands, riparian zones, streams and the #biodiversity that depends on them. www.slu.se/en/about-slu...

Excited to share that our research group's latest "Survival of the Deepest" paper has been accepted! We outline how strengths of several ecohydrological feedbacks are likely different between #peatlands of different depths, leading to increased vulnerability of shallow systems.

Winner of the 2025 #NobelPeatPrize for top McMaster peat paper is Furukawa et al. accepted earlier today in Ecohydrology! Almost four years to put this together. A complete lab group effort! Abstract attached. #SurvivalOfTheDeepest The #NobelPeatPrize (International) will be announced Dec. 11th

2025 #NobelPeatPrize (Outreach) Peat Colours! The “Tracking the Colours of Peatlands” outreach and citizen science initiative explores and communicates peatland science through peat pics. Congrats @wetlandresilienceresearchgroup.com The #NobelPeatPrize (McMaster) will be announced Dec 10th.

Just spent a wonderful few days with #peatland researchers at the University of Waikato visiting pristine, drained, and burned NZ peatlands and discussing all things peat, fire, LOTR, water use efficiency, and optimality. Learned lots. Will be there and back again.

Here Be Sphagnums! Sphagnum moss is generally resistant to burning 🔥 Even in a recent wildfire at the base of the Mt. Doom 🌋 💍 Sphagnum >> Sauron #NZPeatTour

Hydrology Paper of the Day @peatofmind.bsky.social on why carbon cycles are linked to Sphagnum mosses: the process of fire and the primary importance of peat depth in peatlands; modelling of moisture stress by the HYDRUS-1D model; and characterizing processes in the NOBEL water observatory, Ontario

The McMaster Ecohydrology Lab presents the 2025 #NobelPeatPrize nominees! We encourage the #peatland community to give each of these wonderful papers a read. The winner will be announced on December 11th. #PeatPaper

Fund the scientists who are already here. Fund basic science. Fund the scientists who are already here. Fund basic science. Fund the scientists who are already here. Fund basic science. Fund the scientists who are already here. Fund basic science. www.theglobeandmail.com/business/art...

I’m still figuring out bluesky… but with the goal of more easily finding information I’m interested in, I started a feed and associated starter pack for Hydrological Processes as well as Hydrological Extremes. Please let me know if you want to be added to the starter pack! bsky.app/profile/did:...

Happy Halloween!

Our latest #PeatPaper published in Hydrological Processes and led by MSc student Maia Moore! “Ecohydrological Controls on Post-Fire Sphagnum Moss Recovery in Boreal Shield Peatlands” onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/...

The Conversation article that @avnimalh0tra.bsky.social and I wrote about the PeatPic Project and the power of harnessing people, community science and the importance of research networks is now online too theconversation.com/harnessing-t... #Peatlands #PeatColour

🚨New Paper 🚨 The PeatPic Project: Predicting plot-scale green leaf #phenology across #peatlands So happy to see this paper online — one of my favourite projects! We explored how to capture how peatlands change colour using smartphones and community science! iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1...

For over 15 years the McMaster Ecohydro Lab has awarded the #NobelPeatPrize to the authors of the best peatland or peat paper of the year. It’s that time of year again where we review papers and finalize a list of nominees. Do you have a fave paper for 2025 you would like us to consider?

Back from a visit to 🇸🇪 🇫🇮 & 🇪🇪! Enjoyed meeting ecology, biogeochem, and hydrology researchers to talk about #peatland wildfire, restoration, and resilience. Sweden’s two #NobelPeatPrize laureates (Gustaf Granath, Betty Ehnvall) were in the audience of my Uppsala Uni seminar.

New #PeatPaper by Lees et al. in #HydrologicalProcesses "The Sponge Analogy Problem: Moving Towards Clearer Communication of Peatland Hydrological Processes" #peatlands #hydrology #scicomm onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/...

Interested in canoeing, Canadian Wilderness, the barren lands, the North? I can only warmly recommend this fascinating book by my friend and hydrology colleague Jim McNamara @jpmboise.bsky.social. You can SEE the landscape and hear the clicking of the caribou

I started working at MAC 30 years ago this week teaching courses for two geography legends: hydrology (M-k. Woo) and biogeography (G. MacDonald). That experience and mentoring from Profs Woo and Rouse helped shape a research career in the emerging (at that time) field of ecohydrology. #BestJobEver

Well, well, well (and a few piezometers too). A peatland ecohydrologist’s backyard! Those who know, know.

Our latest paper! Regional Wildfire Smoke Reduces Boreal Forest Carbon Uptake Van Huizen et al. Smoke-related inhibition of photosynthesis via reduced light availability should be considered when quantifying the net impacts of boreal wildfires on net radiative forcing & carbon balance

New paper out - Regional wildfire smoke reduces boreal forest carbon uptake iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1... Wildfires are a source of carbon and they can reduce the carbon sink from the forest. Cumulative Net Ecosystem Exchange (NEE) shows a big drop in 2011 Day 138 due to wildfire smoke.

There is the peatland carbon bomb and then there are bombs in the peatland! www.cbc.ca/news/canada/...

Canada now has over 500 out of control (OC) wildfires (299 Monitored and 208 Actioned =507 OC fires). These numbers are similar to the 2023 record smashing season except this year only half the country is on fire.

Q: How does a peat scientist that enjoys adventure spend the #WorldBogDay weekend? A: 180+ km of trekking, paddling, MTB, and orienteering across the peaty northern Ontario landscape at the Wilderness Traverse 24 hour Adventure Race. Completed the full course again! 📷: L. Moreira, M. Ashmore

🌿 New in IJWF: Belcher et al. explore seasonal changes in flammability across UK heathlands, showing that live fuel moisture dynamics drive shifts in fire behaviour. Their fuel modelling reveals up to 4× differences in fire spread based on phenology. 👉 doi.org/10.1071/WF24... #IJWildlandFire

COP15 of the Ramsar Convention starts today. Here in Canada we have the privilege of being home to a quarter of the world's remaining wetlands. Let's not forget what a treasure they are. theconversation.com/canadian-wet...

Check out our new paper "Ecohydrological drivers of Boreal Shield peatland fire refugia" in Ecohydrology. Authors: Alex Tekatch, Chantel Markle, Sophie Wilkinson, Paul Moore, @mercury-ecohydro.bsky.social, @peatofmind.bsky.social onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/...

CBC getting the word out there on peatland wildfire emissions, an increasingly important topic as fire seasons keep getting worse in Canada. www.cbc.ca/news/science...

CBC story on Canadian peatlands and wildfire featuring @gregverkaik.bsky.social @olefeldt.bsky.social @wetland-ghg.bsky.social

Great day for bays! Hole-in-the-Wall, Big Sound, Georgian Bay.

Hydrology Paper of the Day @gregverkaik.bsky.social @micaheckert.bsky.social @peatofmind.bsky.social on how changes to drainage and spatial burn patterns affected biogeochemical cycles and vegetation cover in a peatland: depth of burn, carbon loss, and burn severity in context of a fuel load model.

Area burned in Canada for 2025 is now at 5.6 M ha exceeding the total for the entire 2024 fire season. This fire season is not as bad as 2023 that had 9.37 M ha burned by July 12, 2023. However, 2025 is a very active year with 365 fires out of control and 2 months still left in the fire season.

As Canada braces for another intense wildfire season, Greg Verkaik is digging into how drying peatlands are fuelling deep-burning fires. His fieldwork is providing critical insight in a warming world. More: brighterworld.mcmaster.ca/articles/fie... #Wildfires #Peatlands #McMasterExperts

Check our new paper “Fuel Loads and Peat Smoldering Carbon Loss Increase Following Drainage in a Forested Boreal Peatland” published in JGR-Biogeosciences: doi.org/10.1029/2024... @micaheckert.bsky.social, Sophie Wilkinson, Paul Moore, and @peatofmind.bsky.social [1/9]

Tansley Review now out @newphyt.bsky.social nph.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.... big team effort involving @garethclay.bsky.social @jpritson.bsky.social @em-shuttleworth.bsky.social @queenofpeat.bsky.social @peatofmind.bsky.social @mercury-ecohydro.bsky.social @adamjohnst.bsky.social (1/2)

The area burned in the Canadian 2025 fire season has hit 5 million ha. Third active fire season in a row that combined has burned 7% of the Canadian forest. Currently we have 346 fires out of control (192 monitored out of control (OC) and 154 OC that are being actioned) so expect the number to rise.

Early results from our cutting-edge PIPES project at Queen's University Belfast featured on BBC Northern Ireland this morning. Toxic metals found in UK peatlands could pose health risk www.bbc.com/news/article...