Biogeochemistry and Hydrology in a Changing World -

    (This section under RE-construction)

The classic perspective of the role of freshwaters is defined as the global export of riverine organic matter (OM) to the world's oceans, where long-term preservation of this terrestrially derived OM occurs largely from sediments that accumulate along continental margins. But that perspective is changing. Nearly all rivers and lakes across both temperate and tropical ecosystems are net sources of CO₂ to the atmosphere. Inland waters process, transport, and bury 2.7 Pg C y^-1, which is a flux nearly equal to the size of the terrestrial sink for anthropogenic C (2.8 Pg C y^-1).  Tropical rivers are of particular interest to biogeochemists because their areal outgassing rates typically exceed their temperate counterparts, with rivers and streams having higher rates than lakes and wetlands in both biomes.  In some cases, gas evasion from rivers can exceed dissolved and particulate carbon export to the ocean by an order of magnitude.

     We have worked on the issues of the biogeochemistry of very large basins. A primary, dcades-long focus has been the Amazon.  THe "model" of the Amazon work has been extended to Southeast Asia, to the Mekong basin. The general principles of how to examine regional to continental basins represents the basis for the Virtual River Basins.