Rivers and other freshwater systems play a crucial role in ecosystems, industry, transportation and agriculture. Despite the > 40 years of inland water observations made possible by optical remote sensing, a standardized reflectance product for inland waters is yet forthcoming. The aim of this work is to compare the standard USGS land surface reflectance product to two Landsat-8 and Sentinel-2 aquatic remote sensing reflectance products over the Amazon, Columbia and Mississippi rivers. Landsat-8 reflectance products from all three routines are then evaluated for their comparative performance in retrieving chlorophyll-a and turbidity in reference to shipborne, underway in situ validation measurements. The land surface product shows the best agreement (4% Mean Absolute Percent Difference) with field measurements of radiometry collected on the Amazon River and generates 36% higher reflectance values in the visible bands compared to aquatic methods (ACOLITE and SeaDAS) with larger differences between land and aquatic products observed in Sentinel-2 (0.01 sr −1 ) compared to Landsat-8 (0.001 sr −1 ). Choice of atmospheric correction routine can bias Landsat-8 retrievals of chlorophyll-a and turbidity by as much as 59% and 35% respectively. Using a more restrictive time window for matching in situ and satellite imagery can reduce differences by 5-31% depending on correction technique. This work highlights the challenges of satellite retrievals over rivers and underscores the need for future optical and biogeochemical research aimed at improving our understanding of the absorbing and scattering properties of river water and their relationships to remote sensing reflectance. sediment loading, warming and eutrophication (Whitehead et al., 2009;Malmqvist et al., 2008). In terrestrial, ocean, coastal and lake ecosystems, satellites have been increasingly marshalled for ecological monitoring (Smith, 2003;Valerio et al., 2017), yet rivers have received relatively little attention in the field of aquatic remote sensing, in part

Here we present direct measurements of the biological breakdown of 13C‐labeled substrates to CO2 at seven locations along the lower Amazon River, from Óbidos to the mouth. Dark incubation experiments were performed at high and low water periods using vanillin, a lignin phenol derived from vascular plants, and at the high water period using four different 13C‐labeled plant litter leachates. Leachates derived from oak wood were degraded most slowly with vanillin monomers, macrophyte leaves, macrophyte stems, and whole grass leachates being converted to CO2 1.2, 1.3, 1.7, and 2.3 times faster, respectively, at the upstream boundary, Óbidos. Relative to Óbidos, the sum degradation rate of all four leachates was 3.3 and 2.6 times faster in the algae‐rich Tapajós and Xingu Rivers, respectively. Likewise, the leachates were broken down 3.2 times more quickly at Óbidos when algal biomass from the Tapajós River was simultaneously added. Leachate reactivity similarly increased from Óbidos to the mouth with leachates breaking down 1.7 times more quickly at Almeirim (midway to the mouth) and 2.8 times more quickly across the river mouth. There was no discernible correlation between in situ nutrient levels and remineralization rates, suggesting that priming effects were an important factor controlling reactivity along the continuum. Further, continuous measurements of CO2, O2, and conductivity along the confluence of the Tapajós and Amazon Rivers and the Xingu and Jarauçu Rivers revealed in situ evidence for enhanced O2 drawdown and CO2 production along the mixing zone of these confluences.

The Amazon River outgasses nearly an equivalent amount of CO 2 as the rainforest sequesters on an annual basis due to microbial decomposition of terrigenous and aquatic organic matter. Most research performed in the Amazon has been focused on unraveling the mechanisms driving CO 2 production since the recognition of a persistent state of CO 2 supersaturation. However, although the river system is clearly net heterotrophic, the interplay between primary production and respiration is an essential aspect to understanding the overall metabolism of the ecosystem and potential transfer of energy up trophic levels. For example, an efficient ecosystem is capable of both decomposing high amounts of organic matter at lower trophic levels, driving CO 2 emissions, and accumulating energy/biomass in higher trophic levels, stimulating fisheries production. Early studies found minimal evidence for primary production in the Amazon River mainstem and it has since been assumed that photosynthesis is strongly limited by low light penetration attributed to the high sediment load. Here, we test this assumption by measuring the stable isotopic composition of O 2 (δ 18 O-O 2 ) and O 2 saturation levels in the lower Amazon River from Óbidos to the river mouth and its major tributaries, the Xingu and Tapajós rivers, during high and low water periods. An oxygen mass balance model was developed to estimate the input of photosynthetic oxygen in the discrete reach from Óbidos to Almeirim, midway to the river mouth. Based on the oxygen mass balance we estimate that primary production occurred at a rate of 0.39 ± 0.24 g O m 3 d −1 at high water and 1.02 ± 0.55 g O m 3 d −1 at low water. This translates to 41 ± 24% of the rate of O 2 drawdown via respiration during high water and 67 ± 33% during low water. These primary production rates are 2-7 times higher than past estimates for the Amazon Gagne-Maynard et al.Amazon River Oxygen Balance River mainstem. It is possible that at high water much of this productivity signal is the result of legacy advection from floodplains, whereas limited floodplain connectivity during low water implies that most of this signal is the result of in situ primary production in the Amazon River mainstem.

Coloured dissolved organic matter (CDOM) is one of the major contributors to the absorption budget of most freshwaters and can be used as a proxy to assess non-optical carbon fractions such as dissolved organic carbon (DOC) and the partial pressure of carbon dioxide (pCO). Nevertheless, riverine studies that explore the former relationships are still relatively scarce, especially within tropical regions. Here we document the spatial-seasonal variability of CDOM, DOC and pCO, and assess the potential of CDOM absorption coefficient (a(412)) for estimating DOC concentration and pCO along the Lower Amazon River. Our results revealed differences in the dissolved organic matter (DOM) quality between clearwater (CW) tributaries and the Amazon River mainstream. A linear relationship between DOC and CDOM was observed when tributaries and mainstream are evaluated separately (Amazon River: N = 42, R = 0.74, p<0.05; CW: N = 13, R = 0.57, p<0.05). However, this linear relationship was not observed during periods of higher rainfall and river discharge, requiring a specific model for these time periods to be developed (N = 25, R = 0.58, p<0.05). A strong linear positive relation was found between a(412) and pCO(N = 69, R = 0.65, p<0.05) along the lower river. pCO was less affected by the optical difference between tributaries and mainstream waters or by the discharge conditions when compared to CDOM to DOC relationships. Including the river water temperature in the model improves our ability to estimate pCO (N = 69; R = 0.80, p<0.05). The ability to assess both DOC and pCO from CDOM optical properties opens further perspectives on the use of ocean colour remote sensing data for monitoring carbon dynamics in large running water systems worldwide.

Recent estimates indicate that the lower Amazon River outgasses significant amounts of carbon dioxide (CO2) that was not previously accounted for the global inland water carbon budget. Detailed evaluation of seasonal variability and controlling mechanisms behind the CO2 fluxes in this large and complex area remains incomplete. Previous observations 10 throughout the Amazon basin showed that higher CO2 fluxes (FCO2) and partial pressure of CO2 (pCO2) occur during high water and higher wind intensity seasons. The influence of wind and water speed, depth of water column, as well as respiration of allochthonous and autochthonous organic matter, are frequently assigned as the main control variables. Here, we assess the influence of a set of biogeochemical and hydrodynamic parameters on the seasonal variation of FCO2 and pCO2 near the Amazon River mouth. FCO2, pCO2 and biogeochemical and hydrologic analyses were carried out from 2010 15 to 2016 during four different hydrological periods per year (N=25) in the North Channel of the Amazon River mouth. FCO2 and pCO2 were used as dependent variables and analyzed against 33 biogeochemical, hydrodynamic and meteorological parameters along the hydrological seasons. The highest FCO2 and pCO2 was obtained at high discharge season (11.28 ± 7.82 μmol m -² s -1 and (4575 ± 429 μatm, respectively) when most of these parameters tend to be higher. Among the 33 parameters analyzed, the significant correlations with FCO2 and pCO2 (p<0.05) observed were for water and air temperatures, dissolved 20 oxygen, dissolved organic carbon, nitrate, dissolved inorganic nitrogen and pH. These variables could be considered suitable predictors for estimating pCO2 and FCO2 in the Amazon River mouth area. For a better estimation and understanding of carbon budgets in tropical rivers it is still required to verify and to quantify more deeply the relationship among CO2 evasion and others hydrodynamic, meteorological and biogeochemical variables.Biogeosciences Discuss., https://doi.