Program  
 
Biogeochemistry of organic matter and associated elements along the river-estuary-ocean continuum
 
 
 
Poster
Organic carbon transfer across the open and closed estuary systems: a case study of Geum and Seomjin River systems, South Korea
P-C1-08-S
Sujin Kang* , Hanyang university
Jung-Hyun Kim, Korea Polar Research Institute (KOPRI)
Daun Kim, Hanyang university
Hyeongseok Song, Korea Basic Science Institute
Jong-Sik Ryu, Korea Basic Science Institute
Kyung-Hoon Shin, Hanyang university
Presenter Email: su1423@hanyang.ac.kr

To understand river damming impact on the transport of riverine carbon, we investigated spatial and temporal variations in organic carbon (OC) concentration and their stable and radio carbon isotope. The surface water samples were collected in two contrasting Korean river systems (Geum and Seomjin) across the river-sea interfaces along a salinity gradient in August and December 2016 to analyse OC concentrations and carbon isotopes. The Geum River flows into the Yellow Sea which has a dam at the river mouth while the Seomjin River flowing into the South Sea of Korea has an open estuary. The riverine total organic carbon (TOC, dissolved OC (DOC) and particulate OC (POC)) fluxes were much larger (4236.9 and 963.1 g/s in August and December, respectively) in the Geum River than those (51.5 and 38.5 g/s in August and December, respectively) in the Seomjin River. The DOC concentrations in the Geum River showed similar range between August (2.0-3.8 mg/l) and December (1.3-5.3 mg/l), while the POC concentrations in August (0.2-12.7 mg/l) showed much large variation than in December (0.3-2.6 mg/l). In the Seomjin River, the DOC and POC concentrations were 1.9-2.4 mg/l and 0.8-1.0 mg/l for August and 1.1-1.5 mg/l and 0.3-0.5 mg/l for December, respectively. The DOC and POC concentrations showed decreasing trends from river to sea in the Geum River. In the Geum River, the δ13CPOC values were -21.1+/-2.5 ? before the dam and -22.4+/-1.5 ? after the dam in August, while they were -30.61+/-2.7? before the dam and -27.17+/-2.4 ? after the dam in December. We observed a large algal bloom before the dam during the sampling in August, which resulted in heavier δ13CPOC values in the Geum River. In the Seomjin River, the δ13 CPOC values were -29.1 to -21.1 ?in August and -29.0 to -26.6?  in December, showing a decreasing contribution of terrestrial organic matter from river to sea. The D14CPOC values in the Geum River were -51.1 ?before the dam and -98.2 ?after the dam in August and -87.0 ?before the dam and -221.8 ?after the dam in December. In the Seomjin River, the D14CPOC values were much lower with -186.7+/-2.2 ? in August and -214.2+/-38 ? in December. Accordingly, our results show that the two contrasting river and sea interface systems differently influence OC sources and transport from river to sea.

 
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