Dissolved organic matter (DOM) concentrations and quality for watershed compartments in a forested Mid-Atlantic Watershed, USA
Date
2010
Authors
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Publisher
University of Delaware
Abstract
While the importance of dissolved organic matter (DOM) constituents is well recognized we know very little about how these constituents vary across watershed compartments, influence the transport of dissolved organic carbon (DOC) and nitrogen (DON), and determine the mobility and bioavailability of DOM. We explore the concentrations and quality of DOM for ten watershed sources in a 12 ha forested catchment over a two-year period. DOM was evaluated for throughfall, litter leachate, soil water, shallow and deep groundwater, groundwater discharged from seeps, stream water and water in the hyporheic zone. Soil water samples included both free flowing soil water (using zero tension lysimeters) as well as soil pore water (using tension lysimeters). DOM quality was characterized using a suite of indices derived from UV-visible absorbance and parallel factor analysis (PARAFAC) modeling of fluorescence excitation-emission matrices (EEMs). DOM quality displayed a pronounced trend in watershed compartments especially as a function of soil depth. The humic, aromatic, and high molecular weight constituents of DOM decreased with soil depth while there was a concomitant percent increase in the protein-like DOM moieties. Principal component analyses (PCA) revealed that the differences in surficial watershed compartments were dictated by humic components while differences in groundwater sources were dictated by % total proteins. The increase in % total proteins with increasing soil depth indicated that in groundwater a greater fraction of DOM may be bioavailable compared to DOM in litter leachate and soil water. We did not find any conclusive evidence for C or N enrichment in any particular DOM quality pools. In addition, DOM quality displayed pronounced spatial differences. DOM in wetland groundwater was more aromatic and humic than that at the riparian location. This study also suggested that some spectrofluorometric indices (e.g. the humification index, HIX) may be preferable over others (e.g. specific UV absorbance, SUVA) for characterizing DOM quality.