River Damming Impacts on Carbon Emissions Should Be Revisited in the Context of the Aquatic Continuum Concept

Abstract

Figure 1. A conceptual schematic illustrating the effects of river damming on downstream hydrological and nutrient regimes, and how these changes further impact carbon cycling processes in downstream aquatic ecosystems, including rivers, connected lakes, and estuarine ecosystems. Before-D and After-D denote conditions before and after river damming. Dr. Xingcheng Yan earned his PhD in Geosciences, Natural Resources, and Environment from Sorbonne University, Paris, in 2022. He currently serves as a senior engineer in the Eco-Environmental Research Department at the Nanjing Hydraulic Research Institute. He leads the Young Scientist Project under the National Key Research and Development Program, as well as the Young Foundation Project of the National Natural Science Foundation of China. His research primarily focuses on the eco-environmental impacts of river damming, with particular attention to the biogeochemical cycling of carbon, nitrogen, phosphorus, and silicon. Dr. Qiuwen Chen is currently the head of Eco-Environmental Research Department of Nanjing Hydraulic Research Institute (NHRI). He received Ph.D. degree from Delft University of Technology in 2004. Then, he worked in RCEES Chinese Academy of Science from 2004 to 2013, and joined NHRI in 2014. He has been long engaged in Eco-environmental conservation for hydraulic engineering and hydropower development. He has published more than 400 international peer-reviewed papers. He was awarded the 20th Arthur Thomas Ippen Award from the International Association for Hydro-Environment Engineering (IAHR) and the Xplore Prize. He is now the chairman of Global Water Security of IHAR, and an associate editor of 2 international journals. This work was supported by the National Key R&D Program of China (2023YFC3210000), the National Natural Science Foundation of China (52121006, 52309097). This article references 8 other publications. This article has not yet been cited by other publications.