Dissolved Fe(II) in a river-estuary system rich in dissolved organic matter

Abstract

Reduced iron, Fe(II), accounts for a significant fraction of dissolved Fe across many natural surface waters despite its rapid oxidation under oxic conditions. Here we investigate the temporal and spatial variation in dissolved Fe redox state in a high dissolved organic matter (DOM) estuarine system, the River Beaulieu. We couple manual sample collection with the deployment of an autonomous in situ analyser, designed to simultaneously measure dissolved Fe(II) and total dissolved Fe, in order to investigate processes operating on the diurnal timescale and to evaluate the performance of the analyser in a high DOM environment.Concentrations of dissolved Fe available to the ligand ferrozine are elevated throughout the estuary (up to 21 μM in freshwater) and notably higher than those previously reported likely due to seasonal variation. Fe(II) is observed to account for a large, varying fraction of the dissolved Fe available to ferrozine (25.5 ± 12.5%) and this fraction decreases with increasing salinity. We demonstrate that the very high DOM concentration in this environment and association of this DOM with dissolved Fe, prevents the accurate measurement of dissolved Fe concentrations in situ using a sensor reliant on rapid competitive ligand exchange.