Carbon dioxide and methane emissions of Swedish low-order streams : a national estimate and lessons learnt from more than a decade of observations

• Low-order streams are suggested to dominate the atmospheric CO2 source of all inland waters. Yet, many large-scale stream estimates suffer from methods not designed for gas emission determination and rarely include other greenhouse gases such as CH4. Here, we present a compilation of directly measured CO2 and CH4 concentration data from Swedish low-order streams (> 1600 observations across > 500 streams) covering large climatological and land-use gradients. These data were combined with an empirically derived gas transfer model and the characteristics of a ca. 400,000 km stream network covering the entire country. The total stream CO2 and CH4 emission corresponded to 2.7 Tg C yr(-1) (95% confidence interval: 2.0-3.7) of which the CH4 accounted for 0.7% (0.02 Tg C yr(-1)). The study highlights the importance of low-order streams, as well as the critical need to better represent variability in emissions and stream areal extent to constrain future stream C emission estimates.

Ämnesord

NATURVETENSKAP  -- Geovetenskap och miljövetenskap -- Miljövetenskap (hsv//swe)

NATURAL SCIENCES  -- Earth and Related Environmental Sciences -- Environmental Sciences (hsv//eng)

NATURVETENSKAP  -- Geovetenskap och miljövetenskap -- Oceanografi, hydrologi och vattenresurser (hsv//swe)

NATURAL SCIENCES  -- Earth and Related Environmental Sciences -- Oceanography, Hydrology and Water Resources (hsv//eng)

LANTBRUKSVETENSKAPER  -- Lantbruksvetenskap, skogsbruk och fiske -- Markvetenskap (hsv//swe)

AGRICULTURAL SCIENCES  -- Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries -- Soil Science (hsv//eng)

NATURVETENSKAP  -- Geovetenskap och miljövetenskap -- Geokemi (hsv//swe)

NATURAL SCIENCES  -- Earth and Related Environmental Sciences -- Geochemistry (hsv//eng)

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