Geomorphic regulation of floodplain soil organic carbon concentration in watersheds of the Rocky  and Cascade Mountains, USA

Scott, Daniel N.; Wohl, Ellen E.

doi:https://doi.org/10.5194/esurf-6-1101-2018

Articles | Volume 6, issue 4

https://doi.org/10.5194/esurf-6-1101-2018

© Author(s) 2018. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

https://doi.org/10.5194/esurf-6-1101-2018

© Author(s) 2018. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

Articles | Volume 6, issue 4

Research article

|

23 Nov 2018

Research article |

| 23 Nov 2018

Geomorphic regulation of floodplain soil organic carbon concentration in watersheds of the Rocky and Cascade Mountains, USA

Daniel N. Scott and Ellen E. Wohl

Supplement

https://doi.org/10.5194/esurf-6-1101-2018-supplement

Data sets

Dataset for Geomorphic regulation of floodplain soil organic carbon concentration in watersheds of the Rocky and Cascade Mountains, USA Scott, Daniel; Wohl, Ellen https://doi.org/10.10217/187762

Short summary

Mountain rivers play an important role in storing organic carbon (OC) on the landscape. We use field sampling to quantify OC concentrations in floodplain soils of two disparate mountain river basins. We find that local valley geometry and hydrology are dominant controls on OC concentration. This implies that OC concentration cannot be predicted using consistent downstream trends. Instead, geomorphology must be accounted for to understand the spatial distribution of OC in river basins.