Peatlands are often drained by ditches and creeks in function of agriculture, resulting in ecosystem degradation, huge CO2-emissions and biodiversity loss. To restore these rare and important ecosystems, restoration is needed, provided that the water quality is sufficient. Restoration can be simple and cheap: Local ditches within the terrains need to be closed and larger creeks, that still need to transport some water, should be relevelled until ~20cm under ground level. To make sure the area won’t be flooded, a study or simulation of the effect using sandbags is needed to estimate relevelling impacts. Barrages in the creeks are not favoured due to their desiccating effect up to 30m away.

Local substrate should be used to close these ditches, so a homogenous peat layer is maintained. Often the creek banks are  little elevated. If this is the case, these are used to fill up the creeks. If not, a small 10cm deep layer can be scraped off from the adjacent terrains. For this, small diggers can be used with a smooth bucket.