The Rate of Oxygen Release from Freshwater Bodies

Abstract

The annual regimes of estimated rates of oxygen and carbon dioxide exchange between water surface and the atmosphere was compared for two water bodies with different sizes and hydroecological conditions: the deep oligotrophic Lake Baikal and the small mesotrophic–eutrophic Mozhaisk Reservoir with water exchange rate 150 times greater than that of Baikal. The obtained, very large, differences between the rates of gas evasions and invasions in the lake and the reservoir allow the rates of these processes to be used as integral characteristics for the parameterization of the self-purification capacity of freshwater bodies from organic pollutants.