A preliminary test to estimate the carbon sequestration from lake sediments of Sun Moon Lake in Taiwan

Abstract

Considering the carbon sinks and carbon sequestration, people often think of forests, trees, oceans. However, the carbon sequestration capacity of the lake was underestimated, until now the change of carbon accumulation in Sun Moon Lake has not been accurately estimated. Sun Moon Lake is the largest natural lake in Taiwan. After the dam was built in 1934, the water source of Sun Moon Lake came from Zhuoshui River from the storage in Wujie Dam . The water depth of the lake increased from 4 meters to 27 meters deep, which makes the lake area to expand suddenly and the sedimentary rate was accelerated. Changes in the environment and human behaviors had caused huge changes in the organic matter of Sun Moon Lake. In this study, the carbon element content was mainly analyzed through sediment cores  in Sun Lake and Moon Lake.  Before the construction of the dam, there were many records of charcoal layers left by the aboriginal people burning forests for reclamation in the core.  The carbon content of the lake can be estimated by the formula CO2e=3.67 * TOC% * BD (g/cm3) * D (cm) * Area (ha). Therefore, we can use this formula to estimate the accumulated carbon sink content in Sun Moon Lake sediments. We try to estimate the carbon storage methods based on inorganic and organic carbon during different periods in the future work. To determine the age control is a critical point in core sediments, so we will use XRF data to reconstruct the timing of typhoon events and human contaminations. The volume of lake sediment can be estimated by the sedimentary rates of cores and seismic profile. Now, we need to measure contents of organic and inorganic carbon for the core sediments. Key words: lake, sediments, carbon, organic, inorganic