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Nitrous Oxide Emissions from Newly Created Littoral Marshes in the Drawdown Area of the Three Gorges Reservoir, China

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Abstract

This study aimed to understand the seasonal and spatial variations of N2O emissions from newly created littoral marshes in the drawdown area of the Three Gorges Reservoir (TGR), China. We measured N2O emissions at 10-day intervals during the growing season (early July to late September) in 2008. N2O emissions were measured with static chambers in four typical vegetation stands. The results showed great spatial variations of N2O emissions among the four stands. The greatest N2O emissions (0.052 ± 0.063 mg N2O m−2 h−1) were from Scirpus triqueter stand, while the lowest N2O emissions (0.020 ± 0.020 mg N2O m−2 h−1) were from Typha angustifolia stand. To such spatial variations in N2O emissions, standing water depths and soil water content may be important explaining factors. Besides spatial variations, we also found significant temporal variations of N2O emissions in this area. The temporal variation of N2O emissions in the growing season was not found significantly related to any measured factor in the study. However, based on principal component analysis, we consider it partly caused by thermal conditions and the marked temporal variation of the standing water depth in the growing season, which to some degree influenced the process of denitrification and N2O emissions. These results about TGR enable us to make a more reasonable estimate of N2O emissions from large dam reservoirs, particularly those with a large drawdown area in the growing season in an agricultural landscape.

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Acknowledgements

This study was financially supported by National Natural Foundation of China (40671181 and 90511008), Chinese Academy of Sciences (KZCX2-YW-418), Natural Science Foundation Project of CQ CSTC (2009BB7182). Wan XIONG, an expert of ESP, was thanked for her patient help in writing and editing. We must give personnel thanks to Mr. Meng WANG for his help with gas sample analysis and Mr. Fei YAO and Mr. Yuyuan WU for their assistance in gas sampling. The anonymous reviewer was thanked for his or her detailed evaluation about our manuscript and constructive suggestion on statistics.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. College of Resources and Environment, Chongqing University, Chongqing, 400030, China

    Huai Chen & Xingzhong Yuan

  2. Chengdu Institute of Biology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Chengdu, 610041, China

    Huai Chen, Ning Wu & Dan Zhu

  3. Institute of Environment Sciences, Quebec University at Montreal, Montreal, C3H3P8, Canada

    Huai Chen

  4. Key Laboratory for the Exploitation of South-West Resources and Environmental Disaster Control Engineering, Ministry of Education, Chongqing University, Chongqing, 400044, China

    Xingzhong Yuan

  5. Institute of Mountain Hazards and Environment, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Chengdu, 610041, China

    Yongheng Gao

  6. Bureau of Pengxi River Wetland Reserve, Chongqing, 405400, China

    Jianxiu Wang

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  1. Huai Chen
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  2. Xingzhong Yuan
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  3. Yongheng Gao
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  4. Ning Wu
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  5. Dan Zhu
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Correspondence to Xingzhong Yuan.

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Chen, H., Yuan, X., Gao, Y. et al. Nitrous Oxide Emissions from Newly Created Littoral Marshes in the Drawdown Area of the Three Gorges Reservoir, China. Water Air Soil Pollut 211, 25–33 (2010). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11270-009-0277-4

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