Project Funding: 2017 - 2020

NRA: 2016 NASA: Carbon Cycle Science   

Funded by NASA

Abstract:
Inland waters cover a small area of the planet and thus their impact on global budgets has received limited systematic study. Nevertheless, idiosyncratic approaches, have, in recent years, suggested that inland waters are key “hot spots” that control the processing of carbon at the global scale. The study of the roles of both the ocean and the terrestrial biosphere have made stunning achievements by launching systematic large regional- to- global networks. In contrast, the study of inland waters has lagged, largely due to lack of any centralized coordination and synthesis. The proposed synthesis activities will launch a systematic program to refine and scale-up inland water fluxes. The proposal will catalyze an international group of scientists with specialties ranging from geomorphology to remote sensing to biogeochemistry. The lead PI, Raymond, led a grass-roots effort to include inland waters in regional and global fluxes as part of the Global Carbon Project’s (GCP) REgional Carbon Cycle Assessment and Processes (RECCAP) project. One of the conclusions of the RECCAP work is that sustained, organized study would be highly beneficial moving forward. The proposed work consists of a number of research activities in Years 1 and 2 that have already been defined as major shortcomings coupled with a series of workshops to continue and broaden synthesis activities, with emphasis on engaging scientists in tropical regions that have little data. Calculating the inland water CO2 flux involves global spatially explicit knowledge of the gas transfer velocity, surface area and CO2 concentration. For surface area we will improve 1) the temporal and spatial resolution of water surface area, which is currently at annual and >1000’s km2 scales, 2) Develop spatial maps for streams at high latitudes, which are currently lacking, 3) improve data sets and knowledge of hydraulic coefficients, which are currently derived from the United States only and contain biases due to the use of gaging station data. To improve estimates of dissolved CO2 concentration we propose to 1) create standard operating procedures (SOP’s) for the inland water community, 2) begin the creation of a database and 3) facilitate a network for direct CO2 measurements in undersampled tropical regions. For the gas transfer velocity, the aforementioned improvement of hydraulic coefficients is critical for improved estimates. We are budgeting for one technician and one postdoctoral scientist to lend support to different tasks. For some tasks, work is already underway (e.g., high latitude surface area) and the proposed synthesis activities will link groups working on inland water’s with the global inland water carbon community. In other cases (e.g., creation of SOP’s) progress will be made at the proposed workshops through discussion and break out groups. The inland water community has made recent scaling advancements, but the community still suffers from a lack of cohesion that precludes a systematic and sustained approach. A major impact of the proposed work is to create a coordinated network of international scientists, including representation from regions that are generally not included, for scaling inland water fluxes. The proposed work centers exclusively on carbon, which is an element with obvious societal importance due to its radiative heating potential in the atmosphere. The proposed products, however, will be important to any element in aquatic environments that has a gaseous phase, is exported to the ocean, or is buried in inland lakes, reservoirs and wetlands. The initial team has a mixture of established and new career scientists which will be critical for maintaining a network into the future. The group also has budgeted room to grow and will strive to keep a wide range of scientist from both a career and background stand point.

More details may be found in the following project profile(s):

• NASA Ocean Biology & Biogeochemistry (OBB) Project Profile