The first results of the Tracking the Colour of Peatlands project are now available on the Wetland Resilience Group website. Kauhaneva is one of the project’s monitoring points, and according to the results, a particularly popular one. The monitoring point is located along the Kauhalammin kierros Trail, near the Salomaa campfire site.
Finland has two monitoring stations: Kauhaneva and Torronsuo. In total, there are 14 sites in Europe, three in Canada, and one in Australia.
The project relies on citizen science and smartphone use. At the monitoring point, an information board provides instructions for taking a photograph of the peatland with a smartphone.
A phone holder mounted on top of the board ensures that the camera angle and framing remain consistent. Differences between phone models are accounted for during image processing to ensure that the images are comparable.
The Kauhaneva citizen science board was introduced in spring 2024. During the first monitoring season, 122 photos were submitted. From these images, the landscape’s greenness index was analysed — this index indicates plant greening during summer and senescence in autumn. The greenness index can be used to draw conclusions about the timing of the growing season, the amount of plant biomass, and the carbon cycle of the peatland. The dataset was compiled and processed by Prof. Scott Davidson.
According to the results, the peak greenness at Kauhaneva occurs around mid-July. The peak is relatively sharp, and browning begins immediately after maximum greenness. The greenness level appears slightly higher at Kauhaneva than at Torronsuo or Store Mosse in Sweden, likely due to differences in monitoring-point location.
At Kauhaneva, the station is situated next to a large, moist depression, whose vegetation—mainly Sphagnum mosses and wetland grasses—is likely greener than the vegetation visible at the Torronsuo monitoring site. The greatest variation in greenness appears at the Jouvion site in France, where the vegetation is grass-dominated.
At most monitoring sites, peak greenness occurs around mid-July. On the British Isles, however, the peak often occurs already in June, and the peaks there are not as sharp as those observed at the Nordic sites.
The citizen science project at Kauhaneva continues, and results from summer 2025 are expected to be available in summer 2026.
In the accompanying video, geologist Pasi Talvitie explains how to participate in the citizen science project.
