Particulate Organic Matter in the Scioto River
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Date
2024-12
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The Ohio State University
Abstract
Riverine carbon transport is a key component of the global carbon cycle, and it is important to understand how human activities like urbanization, agriculture, and damming affect the movement of carbon through a river system. The Scioto River, which flows through central Ohio, offers a valuable opportunity to study anthropogenic effects on the transport of particulate organic carbon (POC) because it passes through both agricultural and urban areas, and has two reservoirs. The Scioto was sampled nearly monthly for one year at four different locations along a transect from predominantly agricultural to urban land use areas. POC concentrations at each location were analyzed for patterns in relation to seasonal variability and percentage agricultural land cover of the drainage area. POC concentration was not correlated with the proportion of agricultural land use, but land use types showed distinct responses to similar environmental conditions, such as drought. Our findings matched some predicted patterns, such as the influence of discharge and seasonality on POC, but the effects of the reservoirs were unexpected. These results highlight the importance of future work on the complex interactions between human activities and riverine POC transport.
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Keywords
water chemistry