Production of dissolved organic carbon in aquatic sediment suspensions

In many water quality models production of dissolved organic carbon (DOC) is modelled as mineralisation from particulate organic matter (POM). In this paper it is argued that the DOC production from dessicated sediments by water turbulence may be of similar importance. The DOC production from sediments was measured under sterile conditions, as a function of shaking time, sediment to water ratio and OC content. Furthermore, the maximum fraction of particulate organic carbon (POC) that can be mobilised by agitation (excluding the contribution of mineralisation) was assessed. The experiments can be considered as laboratory simulations of resuspension of aquatic sediments due to turbulence caused by wind, benthivorous fish or dredging. It was found that aquatic resuspension of dessicated sediment may cause mobilisation of up to 100% of indigenous particulate carbon in a few weeks. An empirical equation was derived that expresses mobilised carbon (DOC) as a function of sediment concentration (POC), OC fraction (fOC) and time. At a typical value of 25 mg/L suspended sediment, the halflife for mobilisation is 0.5 day, which is much faster than bacterial degradation of POM in aquatic systems.