From folklore to farming, wading birds to water management, peatlands are a special part of our county. They provide unique habitats, preserve archaeology in remarkable ways and support farming systems. They also play a vitally important role in our global efforts to reduce carbon emissions. New data from partner organisations within Somerset Peatland Partnership, has shown that the past two summers of prolonged drought has put this already vulnerable landscape at even greater risk. Key findings include:  

• Alarming levels of greenhouse gas emissions resulting from dried out peat
• Huge increases in the rate at which the peat ground level is dropping, increasing flood risk
• Less water to dilute nutrient pollution, leading to higher, more harmful concentrations in ditches and rhynes
• Negative impacts on above-ground vegetation and below-ground buried archaeology  

The past two summers of prolonged drought and record temperatures have ramped up the importance of the Somerset Peatland Partnership's mission and purpose. This is because the monitoring that various partners have put in place across the county shows the extent to which the peatland has been impacted. 

The new data looks specifically at the impacts of the summer drought & heat, but the impacts of the degraded peat will be felt beyond summer. When peat dries, cracks start to form, meaning that when winter rolls back around and rainfall increases, the peat is less able to perform its function and hold water within the landscape. As such, the impacts of drought on peat means we're more vulnerable to winter flooding.  

Peatland restoration plays a crucial role in meeting the two biggest challenges in our water system – drought and flooding. The Peatland Partnership champions the one water system, the idea that water is controlled at the catchment level by natural processes, and that flooding and drought should not be seen in isolation but as an interrelated problem stemming from the same issues, one of which being peatland degradation. 

That’s why members of the Somerset Peatland Partnership are calling for the protection and restoration of peatland to be a central part of how we understand resilience within our one water system. 

Peatland & the 2026 drought: what does the data say? 

1. Across our Somerset lowland peat, water levels in ditches & fields were significantly lower than target water levels. 

For example, water levels in ditches at Moorlinch SSSI on Levels, fell 68cm below the target level. The graph below shows water levels between April – October 2026. The top two horizontal lines in the graph depict the target levels for water (mAOD). As you can see, water levels started falling below target at the end of June and continued to plummet throughout July and August, with the peak 'low' happening in August. The levels are still far below target levels. 

The below graph shows the water table, from ground level, over several years at Honeygar in the Brue Valley. The water table level has dropped lower each year since 2023, with the 2025 & 2026 droughts seeing significant lows.

2. Because water levels were lower, the peat dried out. This oxidation process results in carbon loss. This year, CO₂ emissions from the dried-out peatland were significant. 

Healthy peat bogs are waterlogged, and this water is what allows them to store carbon. It slows the decay of dead plants, so the carbon they contain builds over thousands of years forming a thick layer of peat, up to several meters deep. Wet peat does release some methane, a potent greenhouse gas, but this is a small cost compared with the carbon it holds. 

During drought, methane release falls as the peat dries. At the same time, air reaches deeper into the peat, and the stored plant material begins to break down, releasing carbon dioxide. This increase in carbon dioxide is far greater than the reduction in methane. As a result, a drying bog shifts from storing carbon to releasing it, adding to overall greenhouse gas emissions. Keeping peatlands wet is therefore central to protecting the carbon they contain. Each 10cm fall in mean annual water table results in about 5 tonnes of CO₂e per hectare per year being emitted (Evans et al, 2021). 

The below graph shows estimated average carbon dioxide emissions from 8 reserve sites – that is, where peat restoration techniques have already been implemented.  

Somerset has 17,750Ha - or 175 square kilometres - of lowland peat. Because Somerset's lowland peatland has been degraded from centuries of draining, the peatland is emitting CO₂, even on a good year. In the graph below, this baseline is depicted by the grey bars. The orange bars depict additional CO₂ emitted win drought conditions. Significantly more CO₂ was emitted last year due to the drought compared with non-drought year. It is estimated that 2026 saw exceptionally high levels of CO₂ emissions.  

To put this in perspective, the degradation of Somerset's lowland peatland contributes around 10% of the county's total emissions (Somerset Coast, Levels and Moors Economic Assessment, Eftec, 2023). 

The grey bars show estimated average emissions each year. In all years depicted, the Somerset Levels peat emitted carbon dioxide. The orange bars show estimated additional emissions due to drought. 2023-2024 was a particularly wet year, therefore emissions were lower than average because the peat didn’t dry out as much. The blue bar depicts exactly how much lower than average the emissions during this period were.  

3. The carbon lost means that the surface height of the peatland gets lower. Generally, a drought means the peat dries out more, more carbon is lost and so we see a decrease in surface level of the land.  

Over any given year, the peat surface rises and falls with the water table, with the following rhythm: in summer, when the peat is dry. the surface level falls and in winters, when the peat is saturated, the surface level rises. In a healthy peatland there is no long-term loss, the surface recovers to its previous level, or rise as new peat is formed. 

The increase of hotter, drier summers means that the trend, over many years, is that the overall surface level of the peat is dropping, something we are able to measure through the UKCEH peat camera project. This is a physical signature of the carbon loss. 

In August 2025 at Honeygar, the surface dropped 17.7cm below its winter 2022/23 level. Over the following wet winter, the peat surface level rebounded only to about 7-8 cm below. This means the summer drought in 2025 resulted in the peat surface level dropping by 5cm overall. This long-term loss represents a combination of peat shrinkage (compaction) and oxidation (conversion to CO₂). 2026 shows a similar pattern, though we don’t yet have winter data to show the recovery. It’s worth noting that this data comes from a Somerset Wildlife Trust reserve, where we are actively doing peat restoration. It’s likely that the peat surface level would have dropped further on intensively managed land as a result of the drought.  

Degraded peatland is not just important because of the carbon loss and threats it poses to flooding. Lots of things rely on our peat being in good, functional quality: 

• Wildlife & vegetation
• The existing problem of nutrient pollution
• Our buried archaeology.  

In a drought scenario, all of these things are affected too... 

Impacts on vegetation & wildlife 

During a prolonged drought, peat stays drier for longer, meaning less water for vegetation, resulting in a yellow, parched landscape. This leads to a decline in biodiversity as heat and drought stress mean that rarer, more fragile species don’t survive, whilst more common, generalist species, such as grasses, are able to thrive. In preparation for upcoming peat restoration works, ecologists were contracted to carry out vegetation surveys on two sites on the Levels. The surveys had to be postponed several times throughout the summer due to the drought resulting in lack of vegetation growth. The final results are heavily caveated that the drought conditions posed a limitation to the surveying process. 

In other more positive news, peat restoration works completed previously have had a positive impact on Exmoor, even throughout the drought, in terms of creating the wet habitats needed for a variety of dragonflies to thrive. You can read more about this here. 

Impacts on farming  

Across Somerset, we heard reports that farming was exceptionally challenging throughout the drought. One of the biggest challenges were the low water levels in the ditches across the moor and in fact, in lots of instances, ditches dried up completely. Ditches are “wet fences” and relied upon by farmers to hold livestock in place, as well as the main source of drinking water in many cases.  As a result of parched conditions, a grazier in the Gordano valley reported unprecedented numbers of cattle getting stuck in ditches in pursuit of water, or fresh vegetation - reeds in particular - where the rest of the field was parched. We have heard sobering reports from the Gordano Valley and the Somerset Levels of cows that weren't able to be rescued and died. Events like this significantly impact the mental wellbeing of farmers at a time where farming is already incredibly challenging .  

Because of the threat to the wellbeing of livestock, electric fences had to be installed to prevent cattle from getting stuck in the ditches. From an environmental perspective, cattle accessing ditches for water is a key element of some sites’ SSSI designation as the grazing and cattle activity promotes botanical & sward diversity, and creation/maintenance of micro habitats for specialist ditch flora & fauna. The fencing off of the ditches, to protect the livestock therefore had consequences for the biodiversity of the landscape too.  

There is fear that prolonged drought and dried up ditches will be the new normal, for the reasons listed above, but also because if this is the case, there will need to be huge investment in troughs and piped water supply to ensure welfare standards for livestock. Currently, this is expensive to do, and funding mechanisms only cover a very small proportion of the costs. 

Impacts on the existing challenge of nutrient pollution  

In a drought scenario, the existing problem of nutrient pollution is made more acute because there is not as much water to dilute the nutrients in the water system, leading to higher concentrations that hit harmful levels.  

In the artificial water management regime that currently operates on the Somerset Levels & Moors, sufficient channel management plays a key role in maintaining adequate conveyance of water. When there is insufficient water to feed the ditch network during drought, flow stops and the floating plants thrive.  

This summer, duckweed took over the stagnant waterways, fuelled by abundant sunlight and higher concentrations of nutrients. As this excessive growth died back and rotted, the bacteria breaking it down used up the available oxygen in the water, killing many aquatic species. This process is known as eutrophication.

Impacts on buried archaeology  

The oxidation of layers of deep peat impacts the archaeology preserved within the peat. Monitoring by the Trust shows the summer low in the water table at Honeygar. Part of the reserve is a Scheduled Monument. It protects Neolithic wooden trackways, built around 5,000 years ago to cross the wetland, which survive only because the peat around them has stayed waterlogged. An archaeological evaluation by Wessex Archaeology in 2025 confirmed that the timbers and surrounding peat are still well preserved. It also found a previously unknown structure made of birch poles, dated to about 3700 BC, which is older than the famous Abbot's Way. 

But, dipwells in the same field show how close the risk is. Even before the drought, at two of the three monitoring points the water table sat below the expected level of the trackways for much of an ordinary year. In August 2025, readings at all three points put the water at or below that level. 

While the trackways are thought to be in good condition today, the concern is the threat of repeated drying because once timbers dry out, they begin to decay. Interventions were completed at the start of the year to help protect these trackways, however they have not been able to mitigate the effects of the drought.

The Somerset Peatland Partnership, formed in April 2022, is made up of a variety of organisations and individuals living and working on peatland, and has the shared purpose of protecting & restoring the remaining peatland in Somerset through monitoring, direct peatland restoration works, and advocacy.