UC Berkeley

Vegetation, water, and carbon dioxide have complex interactions on carbon mitigation in vegetation-water ecosystems. As one of the major global change drivers of carbon sequestration, flooding disturbance is a fundamental but poorly discussed topic to date. The aquatic and associated riparian systems are highly dynamic vegetation-water carbon capture systems driven by fluvial processes such as flooding. However, their global carbon offset potential is largely unknown. This study examines daily CO2 perturbations under flooding disturbance in the river (fluvial area) and associated riparian areas with 2year in situ observations along the Lijiang. We find that, though the submerged riparian area behaved as a carbon source during the flooding season (CO2 flux: 2.790gm-2d-1), the riparian area and the fluvial area as a whole transformed from a carbon source in pre-flooding season (1.833gm-2d-1) to a carbon sink after recovery in post-flooding season (-0.592gm-2d-1). The fluvial area sequestered carbon (-0.619gm-2d-1) in post-flooding season instead of releasing carbon as in pre-flooding season (2.485gm-2d-1). Also, the carbon sequestration capacity of the riparian area was enhanced in post-flooding season (pre-flooding season: -0.156gm-2d-1, post-flooding season: -0.500gm-2d-1). We suggest that post-disturbance recovery of riparian vegetation played a vital role in this transformation, due to its stronger carbon uptake capacity after recovery from the flooding disturbances. The findings shed light on the quantitative modelling of the riparian carbon cycle under flooding disturbance and underlined the importance of the proper restoration of riparian systems to achieve global carbon offset.