Live Oral Presentation delivered remotely as part of National Virtual Conference AFSS Conference 2020

DryFlux II: do dry but vegetated inland waters help to offset carbon emissions? (#37)

Catherine Leigh 1 , Soren Brothers 2 , Nuria Catalan 3 , Philipp Keller 4 , Matthias Koschorreck 4 , Sarian Kosten 5 , Rafael Marce 6 , Daniel von Schiller 7
  1. RMIT University, Bundoora, VIC, Australia
  2. Utah State University, Logan, USA
  3. USGS - Water Mission Area, Boulder, USA
  4. Helmholtz Centre for Environmental Research - UFZ, Magdeburg, Germany
  5. Radbout University, Nijmegen, The Netherlands
  6. ICRA, Girona, Spain
  7. University of Barcelona, Barcelona

Climate change and increasing demands on fresh water mean that inland waters like rivers and lakes are drying up more rapidly and frequently than ever before, exposing their sediments to the air. Emissions of carbon dioxide (CO2) from these sediments are known as ‘dry fluxes’ and account for a significant proportion of the world’s greenhouse-gas emissions from inland waters. In fact, accounting for dry fluxes has increased the global estimates by six percent, equivalent to an additional 0.12 petagrams of carbon pumped into the atmosphere every year. However, when sediments dry, plant life starts encroaching, and because plants take up atmospheric CO2 they may act to alter or even offset dry fluxes. In the 'DryFlux II' project, we aim to determine if accounting for plants significantly alters global dry flux estimates, and the implications this may have for land and water management and climate change mitigation. We have developed a protocol to compare dryfluxes from bare and vegetated dry sediment and are calling for participants to contribute to this global initiative.