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Environmental Management of River Basin Ecosystems pp 417–428Cite as

A Review on the Riverine Carbon Sources, Fluxes and Perturbations

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Abstract

Carbon is transported from the land to the oceans via rivers and groundwater. The transfer of organic matter from the land to the oceans via fluvial systems is a key link in the global carbon cycle. Rivers also provide a key link in the geological scale carbon cycle. Nevertheless, an appreciation of their roles is yet to be made. Even when their roles are included, data are drawn only from selected large rivers, often neglecting the small mountainous rivers. Previous studies have demonstrated that, the tropic rivers, especially located in Asian region play crucial role in regulating the global carbon budgets. Superimposed on the natural sources and fluxes, the anthropogenically-induced fluxes, primarily emanating from reduced sediment and discharge (as a result of constructions of dams and reservoirs), and enhanced detrital organic matter (as a result of increased surface flow due to land use change) introduce perturbations.

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Acknowledgments

The review could not have been possible without the publications listed in this paper, for which, I express my sincere thanks to all those authors. Thanks are also due to the authors of these publications, for having enlightened me through their publications on the importance of understanding carbon transfer among earth’s components.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Environmental Sciences, Tezpur University, Tezpur, 784028, Assam, India

    Sumi Handique

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  1. Sumi Handique
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Correspondence to Sumi Handique .

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  1. and South East Asia Carbonate Laboratory (SeaCarl), Universiti Teknologi Petronas,, Periyar University,Depatment of Geology,Salem,India, Tronoh, Malaysia

    Mu. Ramkumar

  2. Department of Geography, Bharathidasan University, Tiruchirappalli, India

    K Kumaraswamy

  3. Department of Environmental Management, Bharathidasan University, Tiruchirappalli, India

    R. Mohanraj

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Handique, S. (2015). A Review on the Riverine Carbon Sources, Fluxes and Perturbations. In: Ramkumar, M., Kumaraswamy, K., Mohanraj, R. (eds) Environmental Management of River Basin Ecosystems. Springer Earth System Sciences. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-13425-3_19

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