Substantial increase of organic carbon storage in Chinese lakes

Dong Liu, Kun Shi (), Peng Chen, Nuoxiao Yan, Lishan Ran, Tiit Kutser, Andrew N. Tyler, Evangelos Spyrakos, R. Iestyn Woolway, Yunlin Zhang and Hongtao Duan ()
Additional contact information
Dong Liu: Chinese Academy of Sciences
Kun Shi: Chinese Academy of Sciences
Peng Chen: Ministry of Natural Resources
Nuoxiao Yan: Chinese Academy of Sciences
Lishan Ran: The University of Hong Kong
Tiit Kutser: University of Tartu
Andrew N. Tyler: University of Stirling
Evangelos Spyrakos: University of Stirling
R. Iestyn Woolway: Menai Bridge
Yunlin Zhang: Chinese Academy of Sciences
Hongtao Duan: Chinese Academy of Sciences

Nature Communications, 2024, vol. 15, issue 1, 1-9

Abstract: Abstract Previous studies typically assumed a constant total organic carbon (OC) storage in the lake water column, neglecting its significant variability within a changing world. Based on extensive field data and satellite monitoring techniques, we demonstrate considerable spatiotemporal variability in OC concentration and storage for 24,366 Chinese lakes during 1984–2023. Here we show that dissolved OC concentration is high in northwest saline lakes and particulate OC concentration is high in southeast eutrophic lakes. Along with increasing OC concentration and water volume, dissolved and particulate OC storage increase by 44.6% and 33.5%, respectively. Intensified human activities, water input, and wind disturbance are the key drivers for increasing OC storage. Moreover, higher OC storage further leads to an 11.0% increase in nationwide OC burial and a decrease in carbon emissions from 71.1% of northwest lakes. Similar changes are occurring globally, which suggests that lakes are playing an increasingly important role in carbon sequestration.

Date: 2024
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-024-52387-2 Abstract (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:nat:natcom:v:15:y:2024:i:1:d:10.1038_s41467-024-52387-2

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
https://www.nature.com/ncomms/

DOI: 10.1038/s41467-024-52387-2

Access Statistics for this article

Nature Communications is currently edited by Nathalie Le Bot, Enda Bergin and Fiona Gillespie

More articles in Nature Communications from Nature
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().