MOdern River archivEs of Particulate Organic Carbon: MOREPOC

Abstract

Riverine transport of particulate organic carbon (POC) associated with terrigenous solids to the ocean has an important role in the global carbon cycle. To advance our understanding of the source, transport, and fate of fluvial POC from regional to global scales, databases of riverine POC are needed, including elemental and isotope composition data from contrasted river basins in terms of geomorphology, lithology, climate, and anthropogenic pressure. Here, we present a new, open-access, georeferenced, and global database called MOdern River archivEs of Particulate Organic Carbon (MOREPOC) version 1.1, featuring data on POC in suspended particulate matter (SPM) collected at 233 locations across 121 major river systems. This database includes 3546 SPM data entries, among them 3053 with POC content, 3402 with stable carbon isotope (δ13C) values, 2283 with radiocarbon activity (Δ14C) values, 1936 with total nitrogen content, and 299 with an aluminum-to-silicon ratio (Al / Si). The MOREPOC database aims at being used by the Earth system community to build comprehensive and quantitative models for the mobilization, alteration, and fate of terrestrial POC. The database is made available on the Zenodo repository in machine-readable formats as a data table and GIS shapefile at https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.7055970 (Ke et al., 2022).