Northumbria Research Link Citation: Inegbedion, Otaigbe (2017) The importance of small water bodies for carbon capture in Northumberland. Doctoral thesis, Northumbria University. This version was downloaded from Northumbria Research Link: http://nrl.northumbria.ac.uk/id/eprint/36218/ Northumbria University has developed Northumbria Research Link (NRL) to enable users to access the University’s research output. Copyright © and moral rights for items on NRL are retained by the individual author(s) and/or other copyright owners. Single copies of full items can be reproduced, displayed or performed, and given to third parties in any format or medium for personal research or study, educational, or not-for-profit purposes without prior permission or charge, provided the authors, title and full bibliographic details are given, as well as a hyperlink and/or URL to the original metadata page. The content must not be changed in any way. Full items must not be sold commercially in any format or medium without formal permission of the copyright holder. The full policy is available online: http://nrl.northumbria.ac.uk/policies.html The Importance of Small Water Bodies for Carbon Capture in Northumberland Otaigbe Philip Inegbedion A thesis submitted in partial fulfilment of the requirements of the University of Northumbria at Newcastle for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy 21 June 2017 The Importance of Small Water Bodies for Carbon Capture in Northumberland Otaigbe Philip Inegbedion A thesis submitted in partial fulfilment of the requirements of the University of Northumbria at Newcastle for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy 2017 Abstract Small water bodies (SWBs) are an important biogeochemical sub-compartment of the global carbon cycle that has been given little or no attention. They have similar capabilities to oceans, large lakes and river systems to exist in flux and could store more carbon in their sediments than the above systems. This research is aimed at determining the number and surface area of inland water bodies in Northumberland, the carbon stocks in the sediments of those water bodies and the microbial influence on the carbon stocks. These further define the Northumberland regional carbon stocks, the level of allochthonous and autochthonous carbon influence in the regional carbon stocks and the effects of surrounding vegetation, sediment wetness, dry bulk density, microbes, anoxia, pond permanence and temporariness on carbon stock variations. The importance of SWBs is in their abundance and the ability to estimate this will aid the understanding of their actual contributions to the global carbon cycle as a net source or sink. Using Landsat-8 and World Imagery data, number and surface area of water bodies in Northumberland were identified by manual digitising of water bodies on ArcGIS 10.0. This showed variation in number and surface area of water body abundance with respect to imagery types, time and scale of analysis. The correctness of estimating water body abundance is subject to the continuous temporal change of small water body abundance. The continuous changes are associated with the nature of water bodies, regional/sub- regional landscape (hypsometry), precipitation and land use. Carbon stock in Northumberland was determined by Total Elemental Analyser (TEA) combustion of sediment from various types and sizes of ponds collected from Druridge Bay, Northumberland. Carbon stocks varied in each ponds type and size range. These variations were influenced by the prevailing environmental/physical, biological and chemical/biochemical factors in pond sediments. The microbial community drives carbon stock by altering the microbial community structure, allochthonous and autochthonous carbon processes and the oxygenation in the ponds. PCR pyrosequencing targeted at the 16s rRNA gene showed diversity in the microbial composition of the Northumberland pond sediments and the results showed a varying level of anoxia triggered by factors such as anoxic Proteobacteria, Bacteroidetes, Chloroflexi, Cyanobacteria and Chlorobi dominance. These dominant phyla also influenced other phyla to develop anoxic ecological relationships and produce predominantly anoxia based processes like methanogenesis and fermentation. Anoxic pond bottoms were also triggered by high terrestrial inputs amongst other factors. This research shows for the first time that carbon stock in a region’s SWBs varied because of numerous physical/environmental, chemical and biological factors. Also, SWBs stock carbon from the terrestrial environment and in-situ aquatic processes. Northumberland water body distribution has shown that more carbon is stocked in the small sized water body systems than larger water body system and their global abundance places them as an important carbon capture mechanism. i Contents Abstract ............................................................................................................................. i Contents ...........................................................................................................................ii Declaration ................................................................................................................... viii Acknowledgements......................................................................................................... ix Abbreviations ................................................................................................................. xi List of Figures .............................................................................................................. xiii List of Tables ...............................................................................................................xvii Chapter 1 - Introduction ................................................................................................ 1 1.1 Research content ........................................................................................................... 4 1.1.1 Chapter Structure ........................................................................................ 4 1.2 Research Aims .............................................................................................................. 6 Chapter 2 - Literature Review and Background ......................................................... 7 2.1 Inland water bodies distributions .................................................................................. 7 2.1.1 Historical assessments of water body abundance and size ......................... 8 2.1.2 Global distribution of water bodies ............................................................ 9 2.1.3 Small water bodies (SWBs) distribution .................................................. 10 2.2.1 Climate change and carbon cycle ............................................................................ 13 2.2.2 Aquatic and atmospheric compartments of the carbon cycle ................... 16 2.2.3 Terrestrial or land compartments of the carbon cycle .............................. 18 2.2.3.1 Peatland and Forest ......................................................................................... 18 2.2.3.2 Cropland, Grassland and Large Lakes ............................................................ 19 2.2.3.3 Small water bodies ......................................................................................... 19 2.3 Carbon stores, sinks and the missing carbon budget .................................................. 21 2.4.1 Productivity of small water bodies .......................................................................... 22 2.4.2 Carbon storage in small water bodies ....................................................... 22 2.4.3 Carbon flux in small water bodies ............................................................ 23 2.5 Microbes and microbial interaction in water bodies ................................................... 25 2.6 Other factors controlling processes in SWBs ............................................................. 28 2.6.1 Food web .................................................................................................. 28 2.6.2 Material transport, nature of organic carbon and pond depths ................. 28 2.6.3 Light penetration and temperature ........................................................... 29 ii 2.6.4 Water body stratification .......................................................................... 30 2.6.5 Bio-elements............................................................................................. 31 2.7.1 Northumberland ...................................................................................................... 33 2.7.2 Druridge Bay ............................................................................................ 36 2.8 Why Druridge Bay was chosen as the research site .......................................................... 39 2.9 Chapter Summary ....................................................................................................... 42 Chapter 3 - Northumberland Water Body Distribution (NWBD) ........................... 44 3.1 Background ................................................................................................................. 44 3.1.1 Mapping water bodies .............................................................................. 44 3.1.2 Identifying Northumberland water body abundance and distribution ...... 45 3.1.2.1 Computer-based techniques/approaches ........................................................