Watershed carbon yield derived from gauge observations and river network connectivity in the United States.

River networks play a critical role in the global carbon cycle. Although global/continental scale riverine carbon cycle studies demonstrate the significance of rivers and streams for linking land and coastal regions, the lack of spatially distributed riverine carbon load data represents a gap for quantifying riverine carbon net gain or net loss in different regions, understanding mechanisms and factors that influence the riverine carbon cycle, and testing simulations of aquatic carbon cycle models at fine scales. Here, we (1) derive the riverine load of particulate organic carbon (POC) and dissolved organic carbon (DOC) for over 1,000 hydrologic stations across the Conterminous United States (CONUS) and (2) use the river network connectivity information for over 80,000 catchment units within the National Hydrography Dataset Plus (NHDPlus) to estimate riverine POC and DOC net gain or net loss for watersheds controlled between upstream-downstream hydrologic stations.

Bioavailability of dissolved organic matter varies with anthropogenic landcover in the Upper Mississippi River Basin.

Anthropogenic conversion of forests and wetlands to agricultural and urban landcovers impacts dissolved organic matter (DOM) within streams draining these catchments. Research on how landcover conversion impacts DOM molecular level composition and bioavailability, however, is lacking. In the Upper Mississippi River Basin (UMRB), water from low-order streams and rivers draining one of three dominant landcovers (forest, agriculture, urban) was incubated for 28 days to determine bioavailable DOC (BDOC) concentrations and changes in DOM composition.

Challenges in Quantifying Air-Water Carbon Dioxide Flux Using Estuarine Water Quality Data: Case Study for Chesapeake Bay.

Estuaries play an uncertain but potentially important role in the global carbon cycle via CO outgassing. The uncertainty mainly stems from the paucity of studies that document the full spatial and temporal variability of estuarine surface water partial pressure of carbon dioxide ( CO). Here, we explore the potential of utilizing the abundance of pH data from historical water quality monitoring programs to fill the data void via a case study of the mainstem Chesapeake Bay (eastern United States).

Landscape Drivers of Dynamic Change in Water Quality of U.S. Rivers.

Water security is a top concern for social well-being, and dramatic changes in the availability of freshwater have occurred as a result of human uses and landscape management. Elevated nutrient loading and perturbations to major ion composition have resulted from human activities and have degraded freshwater resources. This study addresses the emerging nature of streamwater quality in the 21st century through analysis of concentrations and trends in a wide variety of constituents in streams and rivers of the U.

Influence of land use and region on glyphosate and aminomethylphosphonic acid in streams in the USA.

Glyphosate is the most widely used herbicide in the United States for agricultural and non-agricultural weed control. Many studies demonstrate possible effects of glyphosate and its degradate AMPA on human and ecological health. Although glyphosate is thought to have limited mobility in soil, it is found year-round in many rivers and streams throughout the world in both agricultural and developed environments.

Variable impacts of contemporary versus legacy agricultural phosphorus on US river water quality.

Phosphorus (P) fertilizer has contributed to the eutrophication of freshwater ecosystems. Watershed-based conservation programs aiming to reduce external P loading to surface waters have not resulted in significant water-quality improvements. One factor that can help explain the lack of water-quality response is remobilization of accumulated legacy (historical) P within the terrestrial-aquatic continuum, which can obscure the beneficial impacts of current conservation efforts.

Recent trends in nutrient and sediment loading to coastal areas of the conterminous U.S.: Insights and global context.

Coastal areas in the U.S. and worldwide have experienced massive population and land-use changes contributing to significant degradation of coastal ecosystems.

The metabolic regimes of 356 rivers in the United States.

A national-scale quantification of metabolic energy flow in streams and rivers can improve understanding of the temporal dynamics of in-stream activity, links between energy cycling and ecosystem services, and the effects of human activities on aquatic metabolism. The two dominant terms in aquatic metabolism, gross primary production (GPP) and aerobic respiration (ER), have recently become practical to estimate for many sites due to improved modeling approaches and the availability of requisite model inputs in public datasets. We assembled inputs from the U.

Thiol methylation potential in anoxic, low-pH wetland sediments and its relationship with dimethylsulfide production and organic carbon cycling.

Dimethylsulfide (CH(3)SCH(3)) is formed in anoxic freshwater sediments by biological methylation of methanethiol (CH(3)SH). We measured thiol methylation potential in low-pH, Sphagnum peat sediments from Alaska and Alabama by adding ethanethiol (CH(3)CH(2)SH) to peat slurries and quantifying the rate of ethylmethylsulfide (CH(3)CH(2)SCH(3)) formation. Thiol methylation potential ranged from 12 to 154 nM h(-1) and was significantly related to dimethylsulfide accumulation rates (P=0.