Arid Zone Research ›› 2021, Vol. 38 ›› Issue (2): 369-379.doi: 10.13866/j.azr.2021.02.08

• Weather and Climate • Previous Articles     Next Articles

Variations of CO2 exchange in the Kuye River basin and its influencing factors

SHI Hongyan1,2(),RAN Lishan3,4(),YUE Rong5,YU Ruihong1,2,ZHAO Yanxia1,2,LYU Xixi6   

  1. 1. School of Ecology and Environment, Inner Mongolia University, Hohhot 010021, Inner Mongolia, China
    2. Inner Mongolia Key Laboratory of River and Lake Ecology, Hohhot 010021, Inner Mongolia, China
    3. Department of Geography, The University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong 999077, China
    4. The University of Hong Kong Shenzhen Institute of Research and Innovation, Shenzhen 518057, China
    5. State Key Laboratory of Soil Erosion and Dryland Farming on Loess Plateau, Institute of Soil and Water Conservation, Northwest A&F University, Yangling 712100, Shaanxi, China
    6. Department of Geography, National University of Singapore, Singapore 117570
  • Received:2020-06-29 Revised:2020-08-26 Online:2021-03-15 Published:2021-04-25
  • Contact: Lishan RAN E-mail:shy960622@163.com;lsran@hku.hk

Abstract:

This study aimed to examine the riverine CO2 emissions on the Loess Plateau. The river water CO2 partial pressure (pCO2) and CO2 outgassing across the water-air interface (FCO2) in the Kuye River basin, situated in the northern Loess Plateau, was holistically investigated in July and October 2018 and March and June 2019 using a LI-7000 CO2 analyzer. Both pCO2 and FCO2 were higher in rivers (996 μatm and 94.5 mmol·m-2·d-1, respectively) than in reservoirs (752 μatm and 10.3 mmol·m-2·d-1, respectively). Meanwhile, the FCO2 exhibited pronounced seasonal variations. For the river waters, the highest FCO2 of 165.7 mmol·m-2·d-1 occurred in autumn, and the lowest FCO2 of 42.9 mmol·m-2·d-1 occurred in spring. For the reservoir waters, the opposite was observed with the highest FCO2 of 16.6 mmol·m-2·d-1 occurring in spring and the lowest FCO2 of -5.4 mmol·m-2·d-1 occurring in autumn. Spatially, the FCO2 in the tributary rivers (107.4 mmol·m-2·d-1) with a stronger biogeochemical activity was significantly higher than that in the Kuye mainstream (66.5 mmol·m-2·d-1) by 50%. While for reservoirs, the FCO2 of the reservoir waters (1.2 mmol·m-2·d-1) in the upper sandy hilly area was lower than that in the middle and lower loess hilly area (16.4 mmol·m-2·d-1). In summary, the pCO2 was mostly affected by the carbonate system, followed by dissolved organic carbon. Additionally, flow velocity had a substantial impact on the gas transfer velocity (k), whereas there was no significant correlation between k and wind speed. On an annual scale, both rivers and reservoirs were strong carbon sources for the atmosphere, and their average effluxes were close to that of the Yangtze River while substantially lower than that of the other tributaries in the middle Yellow River Basin.

Key words: carbon dioxide outgassing, partial pressure of carbon dioxide, spatio-temporal variation, reservoir, Kuye River