Contribution of Riverine CO2 and CH4 Atmospheric Fluxes from Five Distinct Regions within the Quebec Boreal Biome
Contribution of Riverine CO2 and CH4 Atmospheric Fluxes from Five Distinct Regions within the Quebec Boreal Biome
Previously Published Material: Data from one region of study out of five was published:Campeau, A. and del Giorgio, P. A. (2014), Patterns in CH4 and CO2 concentrations across boreal rivers: Major drivers and implications for fluvial greenhouse emissions under climate change scenarios. Global Change Biology, 20: 1075–1088. doi: 10.1111/gcb.12479Campeau, A., J.-F. Lapierre, D. Vachon, and P. A. del Giorgio (2014), Regional contribution of CO2and CH4 fluxes from the fluvial network in a lowland boreal landscape of Québec, Global Biogeochem. Cycles, 28, 57–69, doi:10.1002/2013GB004685.
Abstract ID#: 36548
English Abstract:
Boreal rivers are a major component of the land-water interface in a region with a significant portion of the world's soil organic matter and freshwater. Rivers are often supersaturated with greenhouse gases (GHGs), CO2 and CH4, and emit these GHGs to the atmosphere. Although rivers represent a small fraction of the surface area of the boreal region, they are responsible for a disproportionately large amount of processing and export, thus their contribution to the global carbon budget is significant. This study measures CO2 and CH4 river fluxes in five distinct regions within the boreal biome in Quebec covering 315 000 km2. Regional CH4 fluxes were significantly higher in lower sloped regions. The river networks in these regions together release carbon to the atmosphere in teragrams per year in CO2 equivalents. However, lack of current methodology for calculating the area of zero-order streams in the network may underestimate these fluxes. Zero-order streams are most connected to terrestrial landscape and have the highest CO2 and CH4 concentrations in the network but do not show up on topographic maps.