The relationship between dissolved organic carbon in stream water and soil organic carbon pools at different spatial scales

✍ Scribed by J. A. Aitkenhead; D. Hope; M. F. Billett

• Publisher: John Wiley and Sons
• Year: 1999
• Tongue: English
• Weight: 298 KB
• Volume: 13
• Category: Article
• ISSN: 0885-6087
• DOI: 10.1002/(sici)1099-1085(19990615)13:8<1289::aid-hyp766>3.0.co;2-m

✦ Synopsis

The relationship between stream water DOC concentrations and soil organic C pools was investigated at a range of spatial scales in subcatchments of the River Dee system in north-east Scotland. Catchment percentage peat cover and soil C pools, calculated using local, national and international soils databases, were related to mean DOC concentrations in streams draining small-(55 km 2 ), medium-(12±38 km 2 ) and large-scale (56±150 km 2 ) catchments. The results show that, whilst soil C pool is a good predictor of stream water DOC concentration at all three scales, the strongest relationships were found in the small-scale catchments. In addition, in both the small-and large-scale catchments, percentage peat cover was as a good predictor of stream water DOC concentration as catchment soil C pool. The data also showed that, for a given soil C pool, streams draining lowland (5700 m) catchments had higher DOC concentrations than those draining upland (4700 m) catchments, suggesting that disturbance and land use may have a small eect on DOC concentration. Our results therefore suggest that the relationship between stream water DOC concentration and catchment soil C pools exists at a range of spatial scales and this relationship appears to be suciently robust to be used to predict the eects of changes in catchment soil C storage on stream water DOC concentration.