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A worldwide view of organic carbon export from catchments

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Abstract

Growing interest in the effects of global change on the metabolism, stoichiometry and cycling of carbon in aquatic ecosystems has motivated research on the export of organic carbon (OCE) from catchments. In this article, quantitative and functional features of the annual export rates of total, particulate and dissolved organic carbon (TOC, POC and DOC) were reviewed, and the stoichiometry of export (OC:N, OC:P and N:P) from 550 catchments worldwide was reported. TOC export ranged 2.1–92,474 kg C km−2 year−1, POC export ranged 0.4–73,979 kg C km−2 year−1 and DOC export ranged 1.2–56,946 kg C km−2 year−1. Exports of TOC and DOC were strongly linked, but POC export was unrelated to DOC. The DOC fraction comprised on average 73 ± 21% of TOC export. The export rates of organic carbon were poorly related to those of total nitrogen and total phosphorus. Discrete and continuous environmental variables failed to predict TOC export, but DOC export was influenced by discharge and catchment area worldwide. Models of OCE in different catchment types were controlled by different environmental variables; hydrological variables were generally better predictors of OCE than anthropogenic and soil variables. Elemental ratios of carbon export in most catchments were above the Redfield ratio, suggesting that phosphorus may become the limiting nutrient for downstream plant growth. These ratios were marginally related to environmental data. More detailed hydrological data, consideration of in-stream processes and the use of quasi-empirical dynamical models are advocated to improve our knowledge of OCE rates and those of other nutrients.

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Acknowledgments

This article is funded by Projects 81/2005 and 001/2008 of the National Parks’ Network of the Spanish Ministry of the Environment. PARTNERS data have been provided by Prof Max Holmes. Dr. Luis Alcalá del Olmo Bobadilla is gratefully acknowledged for his advice on soil classification. Dr. Raquel Sánchez-Andrés undertook the task of extracting carbon and nitrogen data from the data set of Oak Ridge National Laboratory (USA) on world soil contents. Comments from six anonymous referees on earlier drafts, and the expertise of the associate editor greatly improved the final outcome of this study.

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  1. CSIC-Institute of Natural Resources, Serrano 115 dpdo., 28006, Madrid, Spain

    M. Alvarez-Cobelas, S. Sánchez-Carrillo & G. Almendros

  2. Department of Aquatic Sciences and Assessment, Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences, P.O. Box 7050, 750 07, Uppsala, Sweden

    D. G. Angeler

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  1. M. Alvarez-Cobelas
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Alvarez-Cobelas, M., Angeler, D.G., Sánchez-Carrillo, S. et al. A worldwide view of organic carbon export from catchments. Biogeochemistry 107, 275–293 (2012). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10533-010-9553-z

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