Accelerated export of sediment and carbon from a landscape under intensive agriculture

Abstract

The export of total organic carbon (particulate and dissolved) from terrestrial to aquatic ecosystems has important implications for water quality and the global carbon cycle. However, most research to date has focused on DOC losses from either forested or peaty catchments, with only limited studies examining the controls and rates of total fluvial carbon losses from agricultural catchments, particularly during storm events. This study examined the controls and fluxes of total suspended sediment (SS), total particulate (TPC) and dissolved organic carbon (DOC) from two adjacent catchments with contrasting intensive agricultural and semi-natural land-use. Data from 35 individual storm events showed that the agricultural catchment exported significantly higher SS concentrations on a storm-by-storm basis than the semi-natural catchment, with peak discharge exerting a greater control over SS, TPC and DOC concentrations. Baseflow DOC concentrations in the agricultural catchment were significantly higher. DOC quality monitored during one simultaneous rainfall event differed between the two study catchments, with more humic, higher molecular weight compounds prevailing in the agricultural catchment and lower molecular weight compounds prevailing in the semi-natural catchment. During an eight month period for which a comparable continuous turbidity record was available, the estimated SS yields from the agricultural catchment were higher than from the semi-natural catchment. Further, the agricultural catchment exported proportionally more TPC and a comparable amount of DOC, despite a lower total soil carbon pool. These results suggest that altered hydrological and biogeochemical processes within the agricultural catchment, including accelerated soil erosion and soil organic matter turnover, contributed to an enhanced fluvial SS and carbon export. Thus, we argue that enhancing semi-natural vegetation within intensively farmed catchments could reduce sediment and carbon losses from these areas and increase their resilience to more extreme hydrological events, anticipated as a result of climate change.