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Abstract
Estuaries act as strong carbon and nutrient filters and are relevant contributors to the atmospheric CO2
budget. They thus play an important, yet poorly constrained, role for
global biogeochemical cycles and climate. This manuscript reviews recent
developments in the modelling of estuarine biogeochemical dynamics. The
first part provides an overview of the dominant physical and
biogeochemical processes that control the transformations and fluxes of
carbon and nutrients along the estuarine gradient. It highlights the
tight links between estuarine geometry, hydrodynamics and scalar
transport, as well as the role of transient and nonlinear dynamics. The
most important biogeochemical processes are then discussed in the
context of key biogeochemical indicators such as the net ecosystem
metabolism (NEM), air–water CO2 fluxes, nutrient-filtering
capacities and element budgets. In the second part of the paper, we
illustrate, on the basis of local estuarine modelling studies, the power
of reaction-transport models (RTMs) in understanding and quantifying
estuarine biogeochemical dynamics. We show how a combination of RTM and
high-resolution data can help disentangle the complex process interplay,
which underlies the estuarine NEM, carbon and nutrient fluxes, and how
such approaches can provide integrated assessments of the air–water CO2
fluxes along river–estuary–coastal zone continua. In addition, trends
in estuarine biogeochemical dynamics across estuarine geometries and
environmental scenario are explored, and the results are discussed in
the context of improving the modelling of estuarine carbon and CO2 dynamics at regional and global scales.
Original language | English |
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Pages (from-to) | 591-629 |
Number of pages | 27 |
Journal | Aquatic Geochemistry |
Volume | 19 |
Issue number | 5-6 |
DOIs | |
Publication status | Published - Nov 2013 |
Keywords
- Reactive-transport models Land–ocean continuum Carbon cycle CO2 Estuaries Biogeochemistry
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