Abstract
To examine the spatial patterns of hydrological variations in the southern and northern East Asia Monsoonal (EAM) region on millennial scales as well as to investigate the relations of hydrological changes on carbon accumulation in the regions with contrasting environmental backgrounds, we performed facies-based hydrological reconstructions at two wetlands, Midiwan wetland (37°39’N, 108°37’E) and Dahu wettland (24°45’N, 115°2’E), respectively, located in a semi-arid loess-desert transitional zone and humid southern China. Our reconstructions show that there is an anti-phase pattern of the precipitation in these two wetlands on a millennial scale. However, with the different responses to the contrasting hydrological conditions, the carbon accumulations at these two sites show in-phase patterns on a millennial scale. These results indicate that the carbon accumulations in the two sites are mainly controlled by the local hydrologic conditions. The wetlands in both southern and northern China were found to be expanding during the interval from 6 to 4 cal. ka BP (ka = kilo annum), as inferred by the higher total organic carbon content. For the Mystery Interval (MI, from 17.5 to 14.5 cal. ka BP), however, both hydrological conditions and carbon accumulations in these two sites showed an in-phase pattern.
Highlights
Wetland represents one of the most important terrestrial ecosystems with its natural accumulation of organic matter closely related to hydrological processes (Billett et al, 2004; Holden, 2005)
The hydrological condition at the MDW site was generally humid during the early Holocene (11.5–8.5 cal. ka BP), except for an aberrant dry event occurring at ∼10 cal. ka BP
We note that the deposits during this humid period contained more minerals than those in the early Holocene, suggesting that this humid period occurred along with a drying trend
Summary
Wetland represents one of the most important terrestrial ecosystems with its natural accumulation of organic matter closely related to hydrological processes (Billett et al, 2004; Holden, 2005) It only accounts for 3% of the global terrestrial land area, wetlants are regarded as one of the most important carbon reservoirs due to its high carbon density (Frolking and Crill, 1994; Blodau, 2002; Strack et al, 2006; Limpens et al, 2008; Yu et al, 2010; Leifeld et al, 2019). The total carbon accumulation is determined by the spatial pattern of hydrology
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