Substantial decrease in CO<sub>2</sub> emissions from Chinese inland waters due to global change.
Where this comes from
- Record sourced from PubMed, PMID 33741930.
- Also identified by DOI 10.1038/s41467-021-21926-6 and PMC identifier 7979821.
- Licence recorded as CC BY.
- The licence permits redistribution, so the abstract is shown in full and the full text is available from the publisher.
Abstract
Carbon dioxide (CO<sub>2</sub>) evasion from inland waters is an important component of the global carbon cycle. However, it remains unknown how global change affects CO<sub>2</sub> emissions over longer time scales. Here, we present seasonal and annual fluxes of CO<sub>2</sub> emissions from streams, rivers, lakes, and reservoirs throughout China and quantify their changes over the past three decades. We found that the CO<sub>2</sub> emissions declined from 138 ± 31 Tg C yr<sup>-1</sup> in the 1980s to 98 ± 19 Tg C yr<sup>-1</sup> in the 2010s. Our results suggest that this unexpected decrease was driven by a combination of environmental alterations, including massive conversion of free-flowing rivers to reservoirs and widespread implementation of reforestation programs. Meanwhile, we found increasing CO<sub>2</sub> emissions from the Tibetan Plateau inland waters, likely attributable to increased terrestrial deliveries of organic carbon and expanded surface area due to climate change. We suggest that the CO<sub>2</sub> emissions from Chinese inland waters have greatly offset the terrestrial carbon sink and are therefore a key component of China's carbon budget.