Vegetation persistence and carbon storage: Implications for environmental water management for <scp><i>P</i></scp><i>hragmites australis</i>

Whitaker, Kai; Rogers, Kerrylee; Saintilan, Neil; Mazumder, Debashish; Wen, Lei; Morrison, R.J.

doi:10.1002/2014wr016253

Cited by 16 publications

(10 citation statements)

References 57 publications

(95 reference statements)

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“…Vegetation deterioration can also lead to a decrease in soil carbon sequestration. In Common Reed patches, soil carbon sequestration is linked to the frequency of inundation 42 . Shifts towards drier conditions will result in less inundation of the non-woody wetland vegetation, which will not be able to fully recover resulting in more carbon loss to the atmosphere.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Resilience to drought of dryland wetlands threatened by climate change

Sandi

Rodríguez

Saintilan

et al. 2020

Sci Rep

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Dryland wetlands are resilient ecosystems that can adapt to extreme periodic drought-flood episodes. climate change projections show increased drought severity in drylands that could compromise wetland resilience and reduce important habitat services. These recognized risks have been difficult to evaluate due to our limited capacity to establish comprehensive relationships between flood-drought episodes and vegetation responses at the relevant spatiotemporal scales. We address this issue by integrating detailed spatiotemporal flood-drought simulations with remotely sensed vegetation responses to water regimes in a dryland wetland known for its highly variable inundation. We show that a combination of drought tolerance and dormancy strategies allow wetland vegetation to recover after droughts and recolonize areas invaded by terrestrial species. However, climate change scenarios show widespread degradation during drought and limited recovery after floods. Importantly, the combination of degradation extent and increase in drought duration is critical for the habitat services wetland systems provide for waterbirds and fish. Dryland biomes comprise almost 50% of Earth's land surface and substantially contribute to global biodiversity and carbon sequestration 1. In these environments, dryland wetlands are of key importance for regional biodiversity as they serve as habitat sanctuaries for aquatic and terrestrial biota in areas with very few resources 2,3. Periodical flooding events regulate the ecological diversity of the system 4 as flows deliver water, sediment, and associated nutrients to the floodplain 5 , allow fish and invertebrates to reach floodplain environments or distant waterholes 6 , and trigger breeding of waterbirds 3,7 and fish 8. During droughts, wetlands show resilience to limited water availability due to plant species either being drought-tolerant or able to re-establish when wet conditions return 9. Future global climate change patterns and interdecadal variability projections indicate that droughts will be longer in dryland areas because of potential changes in weather patterns 10 , which could lead to global decreases of wetland extent, vegetation deterioration, and decreases in habitat services. Although these are recognized risks of pronounced interdecadal variability and climate change, estimates of vegetation deterioration in dryland wetlands are still uncertain, often due to oversimplified representation of flood-drought episodes and the vegetation response to these events. Drylands around the world are expected to receive less rainfall over the next century, which will critically increase the pressure on dryland wetlands, as they will compete for water with irrigation and human and livestock consumption 10,11. Climate variability will add to this pressure, with anomalies in weather patterns such as El Niño Southern Oscillation (ENSO) and the Interdecadal Pacific Oscillation (IPO) expected to become stronger in the future 12,13 , extending droughts 10 and reducing vegetation productivity 14....

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Resilience to drought of dryland wetlands threatened by climate change

Sandi

Rodríguez

Saintilan

et al. 2020

Sci Rep

Self Cite

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“…Despite this estimated contribution, most studies on freshwater wetland carbon stocks and sequestration have been focused on just a few sites (Bernal & Mitsch, ; Whitaker et al., ). One limitation of making nation‐wide or global estimates of wetland carbon stocks based off these values, is that the most carbon‐rich sites have often been studied.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Carbon stocks, sequestration, and emissions of wetlands in south eastern Australia

Carnell

Windecker

Brenker

et al. 2018

Global Change Biology

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Nontidal wetlands are estimated to contribute significantly to the soil carbon pool across the globe. However, our understanding of the occurrence and variability of carbon storage between wetland types and across regions represents a major impediment to the ability of nations to include wetlands in greenhouse gas inventories and carbon offset initiatives. We performed a large‐scale survey of nontidal wetland soil carbon stocks and accretion rates from the state of Victoria in south‐eastern Australia—a region spanning 237,000 km2 and containing >35,000 temperate, alpine, and semi‐arid wetlands. From an analysis of >1,600 samples across 103 wetlands, we found that alpine wetlands had the highest carbon stocks (290 ± 180 Mg Corg ha−1), while permanent open freshwater wetlands and saline wetlands had the lowest carbon stocks (110 ± 120 and 60 ± 50 Mg Corg ha−1, respectively). Permanent open freshwater sites sequestered on average three times more carbon per year over the last century than shallow freshwater marshes (2.50 ± 0.44 and 0.79 ± 0.45 Mg Corg ha−1 year−1, respectively). Using this data, we estimate that wetlands in Victoria have a soil carbon stock in the upper 1 m of 68 million tons of Corg, with an annual soil carbon sequestration rate of 3 million tons of CO2 eq. year−1—equivalent to the annual emissions of about 3% of the state's population. Since European settlement (~1834), drainage and loss of 260,530 ha of wetlands may have released between 20 and 75 million tons CO2 equivalents (based on 27%–90% of soil carbon converted to CO2). Overall, we show that despite substantial spatial variability within wetland types, some wetland types differ in their carbon stocks and sequestration rates. The duration of water inundation, plant community composition, and allochthonous carbon inputs likely play an important role in influencing variation in carbon storage.

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“…Investigations of SOC changes are therefore critical in global carbon cycle analyses. Higher biota productivity, higher soil water conditions, and slower organic matter decomposition in wetlands result in improved carbon sequestration (Whitaker et al, 2015). Anaerobic conditions in wetlands inhibit CO 2 production (Chmura, Kellman, & Guntenspergen, 2011) thereby reducing carbon output to the atmosphere and this may result in net carbon sequestration.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Response of soil organic carbon to vegetation degradation along a moisture gradient in a wet meadow on the Qinghai–Tibet Plateau

Alhassan

et al. 2018

Ecology and Evolution

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The study was conducted during the growing seasons of 2013, 2014, and 2015 in the wet meadows on the eastern Qinghai–Tibet plateau (QTP) in the Gansu Gahai Wetland Nature Reserve to determine the dynamics of soil organic carbon (SOC) as affected by vegetation degradation along a moisture gradient and to assess its relationship with other soil properties and biomass yield. Hence, we measured SOC at depths of 0–10, 10–20, and 20–40 cm under the influence of four categories of vegetation degradation (healthy vegetation [HV], slightly degraded [SD], moderately degraded [MD], and heavily degraded [HD]). Our results showed that SOC decreased with increased degree of vegetation degradation. Average SOC content ranged between 36.18 ± 4.06 g/kg in HD and 69.86 ± 21.78 g/kg in HV. Compared with HV, SOC content reduced by 30.49%, 42.22%, and 48.22% in SD, MD, and HD, respectively. SOC significantly correlated positively with soil water content, aboveground biomass, and belowground biomass, but significantly correlated negatively with soil temperature and bulk density (p < 0.05). Highly Significant positive correlations were also found between SOC and total nitrogen (p = 0.0036), total phosphorus (p = 0.0006) and total potassium (p < 0.0001). Our study suggests that severe vegetation and moisture loss led to approximately 50% loss in SOC content in the wet meadows, implying that under climate warming, vegetation and soil moisture loss will dramatically destabilize carbon sink capacities of wetlands. We therefore suggest wetland hydrological management, restoration of vegetation, plant species protection, regulation of grazing activities, and other anthropogenic activities to stabilize carbon sink capacities of wetlands.

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Vegetation persistence and carbon storage: Implications for environmental water management for Phragmites australis

Cited by 16 publications

References 57 publications

Resilience to drought of dryland wetlands threatened by climate change

Resilience to drought of dryland wetlands threatened by climate change

Carbon stocks, sequestration, and emissions of wetlands in south eastern Australia

Response of soil organic carbon to vegetation degradation along a moisture gradient in a wet meadow on the Qinghai–Tibet Plateau

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