Skip to main content
OSTI.GOVU.S. Department of Energy Office of Scientific and Technical Information
U.S. Department of Energy
Office of Scientific and Technical Information
 

Identifying Key Environmental Factors Explaining Temporal Patterns of DOC Export From Watersheds in the Conterminous United States

Journal Article · · Journal of Geophysical Research. Biogeosciences
DOI:https://doi.org/10.1029/2020jg005813· OSTI ID:1813149
 [1];  [2];  [3];  [2];  [2];  [4];  [5]
  1. Univ. of Maine, Orono, ME (United States); Oak Ridge National Lab. (ORNL), Oak Ridge, TN (United States)
  2. Univ. of Maine, Orono, ME (United States)
  3. Univ. of Maine, Orono, ME (United States); Univ. of Maine, Orono, ME (United States). Climate Change Inst.
  4. Univ. of Maine, Orono, ME (United States); Univ. of Nebraska, Lincoln, NE (United States)
  5. Nanjing Forestry Univ. (China)
+ Show Author Affiliations
The export of dissolved organic carbon (DOC) from a watershed is a key component of the terrestrial biosphere carbon cycle. There is a need to improve our understanding of how and by how much various environmental factors are driving the temporal patterns of DOC export in order to accurately model and evaluate terrestrial carbon storage and fluxes. In this synthesis, we compiled observational data sets from 14 watersheds in the conterminous United States spanning the time period from 1981 to 2017. We used these data sets to examine the relative impacts of various climate, atmospheric deposition, and land cover factors on the temporal patterns of DOC export across watersheds of different sizes and landscape conditions, as well as the time-series autocorrelation of DOC export. Overall, our results suggest that the dominant factor on an annual scale was the amount of precipitation, which had a positive correlation with DOC export from a watershed. Overall increasing nitrogen deposition was coincident with increasing DOC export, and increasing sulfur deposition was coincident with declining DOC export. The seasonal pattern of DOC export was strongly regulated by air temperature, the long-term trend was negatively influenced by increasing sulfur deposition, and no obvious autocorrelation was detected in DOC export. In addition, higher rates of DOC export were positively correlated with greater area of wetlands within a watershed, but was not found to be strongly related to any of the other land cover types.
Research Organization:
Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL), Oak Ridge, TN (United States)
Sponsoring Organization:
Maine Agricultural and Forest Experiment Station (MAFES); US Dept. of Agriculture (USDA); USDOE; USDOE Office of Science (SC), Advanced Scientific Computing Research (ASCR); USDOE Office of Science (SC), Biological and Environmental Research (BER)
Grant/Contract Number:
AC05-00OR22725
OSTI ID:
1813149
Alternate ID(s):
OSTI ID: 1782358
Journal Information:
Journal of Geophysical Research. Biogeosciences, Journal Name: Journal of Geophysical Research. Biogeosciences Journal Issue: 5 Vol. 126; ISSN 2169-8953
Publisher:
American Geophysical UnionCopyright Statement
Country of Publication:
United States
Language:
English

References (50)

Linking variability in soil solution dissolved organic carbon to climate, soil type, and vegetation type: Factors controlling soil solution DOC journal May 2014
Sensitivity of stream dissolved organic carbon to temperature and discharge: Implications of future climates: DOC SENSITIVITY TO TEMPERATURE AND DISCHARGE journal January 2016
Climate change and dissolved organic carbon export to the Gulf of Maine: CARBON EXPORT TO THE GULF OF MAINE journal October 2016
Cryptic wetlands: integrating hidden wetlands in regression models of the export of dissolved organic carbon from forested landscapes journal January 2003
Beyond respiration: Controls on lateral carbon fluxes across the terrestrial-aquatic interface: Controls on lateral carbon fluxes journal February 2018
Forest sources and pathways of organic matter transport to a blackwater stream: a hydrologic approach journal January 1994
Export of dissolved organic carbon from agricultural streams in Illinois, USA journal August 2005
Reconciling Carbon-cycle Concepts, Terminology, and Methods journal November 2006
Ecosystem and Seasonal Control of Stream Dissolved Organic Carbon Along a Gradient of Land Use journal April 2008
Ecosystem Consequences of Changing Inputs of Terrestrial Dissolved Organic Matter to Lakes: Current Knowledge and Future Challenges journal February 2015
The Importance of Aquatic Carbon Fluxes in Net Ecosystem Carbon Budgets: A Catchment-Scale Review journal July 2018
Dissolved organic carbon concentration and flux in a grassland stream: spatial and temporal patterns and processes from long-term data journal September 2015
A review of the export of carbon in river water: Fluxes and processes journal January 1994
Differentiating between rain, snow, and glacier contributions to river discharge in the western Himalaya using remote-sensing data and distributed hydrological modeling journal February 2016
An evaluation of the flux-gradient and the eddy covariance method to measure CH4, CO2, and H2O fluxes from small ponds journal September 2019
Fine-scale temporal characterization of trends in soil water dissolved organic carbon and potential drivers journal September 2016
Predicting nitrogen and acidity effects on long-term dynamics of dissolved organic matter journal January 2014
A new generation of the United States National Land Cover Database: Requirements, research priorities, design, and implementation strategies journal December 2018
The importance of the relationship between scale and process in understanding long-term DOC dynamics journal June 2010
Climate and atmospheric deposition drive the inter-annual variability and long-term trend of dissolved organic carbon flux in the conterminous United States journal June 2021
Nitrogen deposition and dissolved organic carbon production in northern temperate forests journal September 2004
Relationships between molecular weight and fluorescence properties for size-fractionated dissolved organic matter from fresh and aged sources journal January 2015
Declining Acidic Deposition Begins Reversal of Forest-Soil Acidification in the Northeastern U.S. and Eastern Canada journal November 2015
Current Browning of Surface Waters Will Be Further Promoted by Wetter Climate journal November 2016
Quantifying the Impact of Atmospheric Transport Uncertainty on CO 2 Surface Flux Estimates journal April 2019
Generality of Hydrologic Transport Limitation of Watershed Organic Carbon Flux Across Ecoregions of the United States journal November 2018
Global Pyrogenic Carbon Production During Recent Decades Has Created the Potential for a Large, Long‐Term Sink of Atmospheric CO 2 journal December 2018
Freezing Temperature Controls Winter Water Discharge for Cold Region Watershed journal December 2019
Organic carbon decomposition rates controlled by water retention time across inland waters journal May 2016
The boundless carbon cycle journal September 2009
Aquatic carbon cycling in the conterminous United States and implications for terrestrial carbon accounting journal December 2015
Fire reduces riverine DOC concentration draining a watershed and alters post-fire DOC recovery patterns journal January 2021
Global change-driven effects on dissolved organic matter composition: Implications for food webs of northern lakes journal April 2018
Site-to-site variability and temporal trends of DOC concentrations and fluxes in temperate forest soils: DOC IN TEMPERATE FOREST SOILS journal January 2011
Selective decay of terrestrial organic carbon during transport from land to sea journal October 2011
Reconciling estimates of the contemporary North American carbon balance among terrestrial biosphere models, atmospheric inversions, and a new approach for estimating net ecosystem exchange from inventory-based data journal January 2012
Ecologists should not use statistical significance tests to interpret simulation model results journal November 2013
Weighted Regressions on Time, Discharge, and Season (WRTDS), with an Application to Chesapeake Bay River Inputs1: Weighted Regressions on Time, Discharge, and Season (WRTDS), With an Application to Chesapeake Bay River Inputs journal September 2010
Effects of Precipitation Uncertainty on Discharge Calculations for Main River Basins journal August 2009
Response of Dissolved Organic Carbon following Forest Harvesting in a Boreal Forest journal November 2009
Insights and issues with simulating terrestrial DOC loading of Arctic river networks journal December 2013
Hydrological and biogeochemical controls on watershed dissolved organic matter transport: pulse-shunt concept journal January 2016
Increased carbon transport in the Hudson River: unexpected consequence of nitrogen deposition? journal April 2005
How to Standardize Regression Coefficients journal August 1994
Dynamics of biodegradable DOC produced by freshwater plankton communities journal January 2000
Assessing the Minimum Number of Time Since Last Fire Sample-Points Required to Estimate the Fire Cycle: Influences of Fire Rotation Length and Study Area Scale journal November 2018
Dynamic of nitrogen and dissolved organic carbon in an alpine forested catchment: atmospheric deposition and soil solution trends journal May 2019
Effects of climate on organic carbon and the ratio of planktonic to benthic primary producers in a subarctic lake during the past 45 years journal July 2009
Dissolved organic carbon mobilized from organic horizons of mature and harvested black spruce plots in a mesic boreal region journal January 2020
Chapter 2: The North American Carbon Budget. Second State of the Carbon Cycle Report report January 2018

Similar Records

Climate and atmospheric deposition drive the inter-annual variability and long-term trend of dissolved organic carbon flux in the conterminous United States
Journal Article · Wed Jan 27 19:00:00 EST 2021 · Science of the Total Environment · OSTI ID:1811372

Related Subjects

54 ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES
carbon cycle
dissolved organic carbon
environmental factors
model
watershed