Diurnal variations of pCO2 in relation to environmental factors in the cascade reservoirs along the Wujiang River, China

Abstract

We have investigated the diurnal variations of the pCO2 and related environmental factors in the cascade reservoirs with different trophic levels along Wujiang River. In surface water the pCO2 was 357±11 μatm in Hongjiadu Reservoir, 338±48 μatm in Dongfeng Reservoir, 682±303 μatm in Wujiangdu Reservoir, and 1677±429 μatm in Liuguang, respectively. The results indicated that these cascade reservoirs had much lower pCO2 values in surface water than river did, and hypereutrophic reservoir showed larger diurnal variations of pCO2 than meso-eutrophic reservoir. In water column, pCO2 tended to increase with the depth. Phytoplankton and the environmental factors such as temperature and pH had different influences on pCO2 diurnal variations due to different trophic levels, and the effect of phytoplankton on pCO2 variation increased with the increase of trophic level in these reservoirs.