EESS talk on "Carbon cycling in temporary and shrinking waters: doing limnology when water vanishes"
Event details
Date | 11.05.2021 |
Hour | 12:15 › 13:00 |
Speaker | Dr Biel Obrador Sala, Associate professor, Department of Evolutionary Biology, Ecology and Environmental Sciences, Faculty of Biology, University of Barcelona, ES |
Location |
ZOOM
Online
|
Category | Conferences - Seminars |
Abstract:
Inland waters play a significant role in the global carbon cycle by regulating how much continental carbon finally reaches the oceans. The sediments of lakes and reservoirs accumulate terrestrial organic carbon, and inland waters have emerged as active carbon reactors delivering large amounts of greenhouse gases to the atmosphere, mainly in the form of carbon dioxide (CO2) and methane (CH4). This view of inland waters as active biogeochemical reactors processing carbon from terrestrial ecosystems has redefined their role in the carbon budgets and landscape, continental and global scales, with implications on several ecosystem services, including a reassessment of the carbon footprint of hydropower. However, most of the research on C cycling in inland waters has been conducted in permanently inundated ecosystems, despite a large part of the world's inland waters is subject to occasional, recurrent or even permanent drying. Information on carbon biogeochemical processes in temporary waters is therefore scarce and there is a considerable knowledge gap on the magnitude and drivers of greenhouse gas emissions from aquatic ecosystems when they are dry. Recent estimates have shown very high and dynamic CO2 emissions from the dry sediments of streams, rivers, ponds, lakes and reservoirs. This is particularly relevant as inland waters are currently shrinking in many regions of the world due to alterations of the water cycle promoted by a combination of climate change and direct human interventions. The consequences of drying on the functioning of inland water ecosystems extend beyond the water-land interface and imply major changes in the biogeochemical dynamics of these ecosystems at different temporal scales. research on this topic of “dry limnology” aims at including the dry phases of inland waters in our current understanding of inland water carbon budgets in order to identify potential implications for global carbon cycle feedbacks.
Short biography:
Dr Biel Obrador is an ecosystem ecologist specialized in carbon cycling in aquatic systems. With a PhD in Ecology by the University of Barcelona his current research aims at understanding how aquatic ecosystem functioning responds to local and global drivers, using carbon biogeochemistry as a proxy. His research topics include ecosystem-level understanding of aquatic metabolism, greenhouse gas emissions and biogeochemical transformation of dissolved organic carbon in river networks, and inorganic carbon burial in lake and reservoir sediments. Most of his research has focused on temporary ecosystems, as perfect environments to study the biogeochemical dynamics of aquatic-terrestrial interfaces.
Inland waters play a significant role in the global carbon cycle by regulating how much continental carbon finally reaches the oceans. The sediments of lakes and reservoirs accumulate terrestrial organic carbon, and inland waters have emerged as active carbon reactors delivering large amounts of greenhouse gases to the atmosphere, mainly in the form of carbon dioxide (CO2) and methane (CH4). This view of inland waters as active biogeochemical reactors processing carbon from terrestrial ecosystems has redefined their role in the carbon budgets and landscape, continental and global scales, with implications on several ecosystem services, including a reassessment of the carbon footprint of hydropower. However, most of the research on C cycling in inland waters has been conducted in permanently inundated ecosystems, despite a large part of the world's inland waters is subject to occasional, recurrent or even permanent drying. Information on carbon biogeochemical processes in temporary waters is therefore scarce and there is a considerable knowledge gap on the magnitude and drivers of greenhouse gas emissions from aquatic ecosystems when they are dry. Recent estimates have shown very high and dynamic CO2 emissions from the dry sediments of streams, rivers, ponds, lakes and reservoirs. This is particularly relevant as inland waters are currently shrinking in many regions of the world due to alterations of the water cycle promoted by a combination of climate change and direct human interventions. The consequences of drying on the functioning of inland water ecosystems extend beyond the water-land interface and imply major changes in the biogeochemical dynamics of these ecosystems at different temporal scales. research on this topic of “dry limnology” aims at including the dry phases of inland waters in our current understanding of inland water carbon budgets in order to identify potential implications for global carbon cycle feedbacks.
Short biography:
Dr Biel Obrador is an ecosystem ecologist specialized in carbon cycling in aquatic systems. With a PhD in Ecology by the University of Barcelona his current research aims at understanding how aquatic ecosystem functioning responds to local and global drivers, using carbon biogeochemistry as a proxy. His research topics include ecosystem-level understanding of aquatic metabolism, greenhouse gas emissions and biogeochemical transformation of dissolved organic carbon in river networks, and inorganic carbon burial in lake and reservoir sediments. Most of his research has focused on temporary ecosystems, as perfect environments to study the biogeochemical dynamics of aquatic-terrestrial interfaces.
Practical information
- General public
- Free
- This event is internal
Organizer
- EESS - IIE