the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.
Post-flooding disturbance recovery promotes carbon capture in riparian zones
- 1School of Earth and Planetary, University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, 100049, China
- 2State Key Laboratory for Water Environment Simulation, School of Environment, Beijing Normal University, Beijing, 100875, China
- 3Department of Environmental Science, Policy and Management, University of California, Berkeley, 94704, USA
- 4Yale School of the Environment, Yale University, New Haven, 06511, USA
- 5Institute of Wetland Ecology & Clone Ecology; Zhejiang Provincial Key Laboratory of Plant Evolutionary Ecology and Conservation, Taizhou University, Thaizhou, 318000, China
- Yihong Zhu and Ruihua Liu contributed equally to this paper.
- 1School of Earth and Planetary, University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, 100049, China
- 2State Key Laboratory for Water Environment Simulation, School of Environment, Beijing Normal University, Beijing, 100875, China
- 3Department of Environmental Science, Policy and Management, University of California, Berkeley, 94704, USA
- 4Yale School of the Environment, Yale University, New Haven, 06511, USA
- 5Institute of Wetland Ecology & Clone Ecology; Zhejiang Provincial Key Laboratory of Plant Evolutionary Ecology and Conservation, Taizhou University, Thaizhou, 318000, China
- Yihong Zhu and Ruihua Liu contributed equally to this paper.
Abstract. 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, water disturbance is a fundamental but poorly discussed topic to date. The riparian zone is a representative highly dynamic vegetation-water carbon capture system. Unfortunately, its global carbon offset functionality is remarkably underestimated. This study examines the daily CO2 perturbations in the riparian zone with two-year in-situ observations along the Lijiang River. We show that the riparian zone transformed from a carbon source to carbon sink after recovery from flooding. Consequently, a quantitative global riparian carbon offset model is proposed. Based on the intensity of flooding submergence and post-flooding vegetation coverage, ~0.11Gt·year-1 CO2 is captured following flooding, and 0.53 Gt·year-1 more CO2 is captured due to flooding, which is equivalent to 9.1 % of the global forest carbon sequestration. This finding shed new light on the quantitative modelling of the riparian carbon cycle under flooding disturbance, underlining the importance of the proper restoration of riparian systems to achieve global carbon offset.
Yihong Zhu et al.
Status: open (until 16 Oct 2022)
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RC1: 'Comment on bg-2022-175', Anonymous Referee #1, 11 Sep 2022
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This study evaluates how carbon fluxes of river riparian areas seasonally respond to flooding by investigating the CO2 and dissolved carbon fluxes during pre- and post-flooding seasons. The methods were generally well established and results were generally well discussed. In particular, authors discussed how vegetation and the post-flooding change of riparian vegetation species and richness affect/determines net carbon fluxes in river riparian areas. I think this could be a valuable contribution to this area.
One thing that might be ambiguous to audience is that authors use terms like “pre-flooding”, “flooding” and “post-flooding” to describe their measurements in different seasons. This might be a bit misleading because floods often refer to short-term events. Considering authors evaluated these carbon fluxes on a seasonal base, I’d suggest authors changes these expressions to pre-flooding seasons, flooding seasons and post-flooding seasons instead.
I have only a few minor comments on the rest of the manuscript. See below,
Line 174: in different seasons
Line 175: we first reviewed the diel cycle.
Line 176: change “the terrestrial area” to “riparian soils” or “riparian area”, same below
Line 183: “terrestrial area with vegetation” to “riparian area with vegetation”
Line 200-203: the sentence repeat line 186-188. Consider delete one of them
Line 241: is the water-air carbon flux (Fig. 2b).
Line 285-286: no need to capitalize first letters
Line 313: needs further analysis
Line 332: the riparian zone thus has …
Yihong Zhu et al.
Yihong Zhu et al.
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