Assessment of carbon flux in a major tropical river of southern India and its implication on climate change

Abstract

Increasing concentrations of carbon dioxide warming have been identified as an important cause of global warming resulting in changes in weather pattern and global climate The estimation of carbon budgets requires thorough understanding of processes in earth that affects the concentrations of carbon in atmosphere and its cycling where these processes are collectively called as Carbon cycle The existence of inland waters in carbon cycle has been highly disregarded in carbon budget studies but rivers acts as an active component in carbon cycle by consuming/releasing carbon to atmosphere and transporting dissolved carbon into oceans The contribution of water bodies such as rivers to carbon emission is expected to be more significant in tropical regions of the world Hence there is a need to estimate the role of rivers on carbon cycle in tropical regions like India since the global carbon budgets have reported India to be one of the major emitters of carbon The present study was carried out in a major non-perennial tropical river of South India Cauvery The objective of this study is to understand the relationship between the geological processes and concentration of various ions in groundwater surface water for estimating the carbon flux of Cauvery river newline