High carbon burial rates by small ponds in the landscape

Abstract

Temperate ponds may be important sinks and sources of greenhouse gases but just how quickly ponds bury carbon (C) is poorly understood. We derived – to the best of our knowledge – the first organic carbon (OC) burial rates for small ponds of known age by digging out the whole sediment from ponds, and determined that the average C burial rate was 142 g m−2 yr−1, with a range of 79–247 g m−2 yr−1, depending on the ponds' vegetation. Burial rates in the ponds were 20–30 times higher than rates estimated for many other habitat types, such as woodlands or grasslands, and higher than those of other natural wetlands. Although small ponds occupy a very small proportion of the landscape as compared to these other habitats, their high OC burial rates result in comparable annual OC burial overall. Ponds are easy to create, can fit in with other land uses, and are a globally ubiquitous habitat. Our results indicate that ponds have the potential to be a very useful additional tool for mitigating C emissions.

Regulation of carbon dioxide and methane in small agricultural reservoirs: optimizing potential for greenhouse gas uptake

“…This likely represents control via metabolic processes such as net ecosystem production (NEP) or chemical oxidation of reduced species (Stets et al, 2017). In contrast, relationships between CO 2 and O 2 were less well defined a both high and low oxygen saturations, conditions which may indicate a greater contribution from anaerobic production of CO 2 (Torgersen and Branco, 2008;Holgerson, 2015). Alter- Figure 4.…”

“…In some lakes, high N loading favoured elevated heterotrophy, despite simultaneous boosts in primary production, which draw down free CO 2 (Huttunen et al, 2003;Cole et al, 2000). The effect of a high N influx on CO 2 may be heightened in smaller or shallow lentic waters which are more influenced by sedimentary processes (Torgersen and Branco, 2008). Further, high N availability can increase algal biomass and the deposition of fresh organic matter (OM) made increasingly available for bacterial respiration (Cole et al, 2000).…”

“…Extreme CO 2 and CH 4 supersaturation is characteristic of small waterbodies due to greater contact with the sediment and littoral zone (Downing et al, 2008;Holgerson, 2015), often making them disproportionately important in landscape carbon (C) budgets (Hamilton et al, 1994;Premke et al, 2016;Kuhn et al, 2018). Conversely, ponds may have the capacity to store landscape-significant amounts of carbon, with burial rates 20-30 times higher than wetlands and large lakes (Gilbert et al, 2014;Taylor et al, 2019). While these assessments have stimulated a growing area of research on small waterbodies, much work is still needed to revise estimates of their carbon emissions due to limited knowledge on their regional distribution and variability, as well as their overall global extent (Verpoorter et al, 2014).…”

It Is Not Easy Being Green: Recognizing Unintended Consequences of Green Stormwater Infrastructure

“…Ponds slow and temporarily store stormwater runoff, allowing suspended solids containing the majority of stormwater contaminants to settle to the bottom of the pond from which they must be removed during infrequent maintenance [72]. If ponds are neglected, however, which is often the case [126,129], sediments, organic matter, and contaminants accumulate [130][131][132]. Under certain conditions, these contaminants may dissolve into the water and flow out of the pond [133,134].…”

Regulation of carbon dioxide and methane in small agricultural reservoirs: Optimizing potential for greenhouse gas uptake

“…Conversely, ponds may have the capacity to store landscape-significant amounts of carbon, with burial rates 20-30 times higher than wetlands and large lakes (Gilbert et al, 2014;Taylor et al, 2019). While these assessments have stimulated a growing area of research on small waterbodies, much work is still needed to revise estimates of their carbon emissions due to limited knowledge on their regional distribution and variability, as well as their overall global extent (Verpoorter et al, 2014).…”