DAMAGED areas of peatland have been restored in a £1.5m project to improve the quality of drinking water.

Yorkshire Water has worked on the project alongside the Yorkshire Peat Partnership (YPP) at the Swinton Estate near Masham.

Peat has been laid down over the uplands of Yorkshire over thousands of years forming vast, wet areas known as blanket bog.

Healthy blanket bog helps filter water before it reaches Yorkshire’s reservoirs, but damaged peatlands release particles of organic matter that discolours drinking water and is expensive to remove.

In the 70s, much of the county’s peatland was damaged by drainage channels – known as grips – dug to improve the land for agriculture.

Yorkshire Water, YPP and the Swinton Estate have been working together to repair this damage and restore blanket bog at Colsterdale above Masham.

Also included is an important monitoring study looking at the effectiveness of inoculating areas of moorlands with key species of sphagnum.

Sphagnum is a moss that can hold over eight times its weight in water, helping to keep the moors wetter, and the water draining from it cleaner.

It can also help reduce the flow of water off the moors, thereby helping to lessen the impact of flooding further downstream.