Fluxes of dissolved and nonfossil particulate organic carbon from an Oceania small river (Lanyang Hsi) in Taiwan

Concentrations of dissolved and particulate organic carbon (DOC & POC) in river waters were measuredduring 1993–1994 in the Lanyang Hsi watershed, which representsa typical small Oceania river. The DOC concentrations varied in the range of 0.5–4 mg/l during non-typhoon period, but rose to as highas 8 mg/l during Typhoon Tim in July, 1994. Based on the log-linearrelationship between the DOC load and the discharge rate, weestimated the DOC export to be 3.4 ± 0.6 ktC/yr,and the DOC yield to be 4.1 ± 0.7 gC/m²/yr,which is considerably higher than a former estimate (ca.0.1 gC/m²/yr) for the Oceania. On the other hand, the DOC yield is less than the concurrent POC yield (21.7 ± 4.7gC/m²/yr) by a factor of five, but most of theexported POC is fossil carbon. Under the assumption that the suspended sediments contain a mean fossil POC content of0.5%, the nonfossil POC yield was calculated to be 4.6± 3.0 gC/m²/yr, comparable to theDOC yield. Since DOC and nonfossil POC are directly related to theecosystem, their combined fluxes give a biogenic organic carbonyield of 8.7 ± 3.1 gC/m²/yr.