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Title: Impact of wetland decline on decreasing dissolved organic carbon concentrations along the Mississippi River continuum

Journal Article · · Frontiers in Marine Science
 [1];  [2];  [2];  [3];  [4];  [5]
  1. Univ. of Maryland, College Park, MD (United States)
  2. National Weather Service, Silver Spring, MD (United States)
  3. Univ. of Florida, Gainesville, FL (United States)
  4. Univ. of Florida, Gainesville, FL (United States); Univ. of Florida, St. Augustine, FL (United States)
  5. Univ. of Wisconsin, Milwaukee, WI (United States)
+ Show Author Affiliations

Prior to discharging to the ocean, large rivers constantly receive inputs of dissolved organic carbon (DOC) from tributaries or fringing floodplains and lose DOC via continuous in situ processing along distances that span thousands of kilometers. Current concepts predicting longitudinal changes in DOC mainly focus on in situ processing or exchange with fringing floodplain wetlands, while effects of heterogeneous watershed characteristics are generally ignored. We analyzed results from a 17-year time-series of DOC measurements made at seven sites and three expeditions along the entire Mississippi River main channel with DOC measurements made every 17 km. The results show a clear downstream decrease in DOC concentrations that was consistent throughout the entire study period. Downstream DOC decreases were primarily (~63–71%) a result of constant dilutions by low-DOC tributary water controlled by watershed wetland distribution, while in situ processing played a secondary role. We estimate that from 1780 to 1980 wetland loss due to land-use alterations caused a ca. 58% decrease in in DOC concentrations in the tributaries of the Mississippi River. DOC reductions caused by watershed wetland loss likely impacted the capacity for the river to effectively remove nitrogen via denitrification, which can further exacerbate coastal hypoxia. Lastly, these findings highlight the importance of watershed wetlands in regulating DOC longitudinally along the headland to ocean continuum of major rivers.

Research Organization:
Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL), Richland, WA (United States)
Sponsoring Organization:
USDOE
Grant/Contract Number:
AC05-76RL01830
OSTI ID:
1347840
Report Number(s):
PNNL-SA-124217
Journal Information:
Frontiers in Marine Science, Vol. 3; ISSN 2296-7745
Publisher:
Frontiers Research FoundationCopyright Statement
Country of Publication:
United States
Language:
English
Citation Metrics:
Cited by: 20 works
Citation information provided by
Web of Science

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Cited By (5)

A Synthetic Model to Quantify Dissolved Organic Carbon Transport in the Changjiang River System: Model Structure and Spatiotemporal Patterns journal September 2019
Contribution of wetlands to nitrate removal at the watershed scale journal January 2018
Enhanced Aquatic Respiration Associated With Mixing of Clearwater Tributary and Turbid Amazon River Waters journal May 2019
Where Carbon Goes When Water Flows: Carbon Cycling across the Aquatic Continuum journal January 2017
The Future of Freshwater Macrophytes in a Changing World: Dissolved Organic Carbon Quantity and Quality and Its Interactions With Macrophytes journal May 2018

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Related Subjects

54 ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES
Mississippi River Basin
organic carbon
dissolved
wetlands
decline
aquatic
terrestrial
river continuum
interface
in-stream processes