CO2 evasion along streams driven by groundwater inputs and geomorphic controls

Headwaters are hotspots of carbon dioxide (CO₂) evasion from rivers. While emerging evidence suggests that groundwater contributes disproportionately to CO₂ in headwater streams, the processes of CO₂ delivery to streams and subsequent evasion to the atmosphere remain largely unknown. This study, partly based on CO₂ measurements along the Houay Pano stream in Northern Laos (M-TROPICS/MSEC), finds that processes can be highly localized in both space and time. It also highlights sharp increases and decreases in the stream CO₂ flux and suggest that current models fail to capture the true magnitude of CO₂ evasion.

This paper was published on October 29 in Nature Geoscience and can be downloaded here.