Dams not to blame for all reservoir carbon emissions from retained organic carbon
7 affiliations
- 1Jiangsu Collaborative Innovation Center of Atmospheric Environment and Equipment Technologies, Jiangsu Key Laboratory of Atmospheric Environmental Monitoring and Pollution Control, School of Environmental Science and Engineering, Nanjing University of Information Science and Technology, Nanjing 210044, China.
- 2Institute of Agricultural Resources and Regional Planning, Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences, Beijing 100081, China.
- 3Taihu Lake Laboratory Ecosystem Station, State Key Laboratory of Lake Science and Environment, Nanjing Institute of Geography and Limnology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Nanjing 210008, China.
- 4Institute of Marine Sciences, University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill, Morehead City, NC 28557, USA.
- 5Department of Ecoscience and Center for Water Technology, Aarhus University, 8000 Aarhus, Denmark.
- 6Sino-Danish Centre for Education and Research, Beijing 100190, China.
- 7Institute for Ecological Research and Pollution Control of Plateau Lakes, School of Ecology and Environmental Sciences, Yunnan University, Kunming 650500, China.
Abstract
Dams trap organic carbon (OC) and create carbon dioxide (CO₂) and methane (CH₄) emission hotspots within reservoirs, underlying the ongoing debate over their role in carbon emissions. However, even without dams, this labile OC would still decompose and emit CO₂ or CH₄ during downstream transport and after deposition in estuaries. Thus, relying solely on dammed reservoir observations to assess these emissions may introduce considerable bias. Here, we simulated both dammed and non-dammed scenarios for 5346 global reservoir dams to assess their impact on carbon emissions from retained OC. The results show that reservoir-only approaches overestimate dam-induced carbon emissions by neglecting baseline emissions under no-dam conditions. After baseline correction, dams increase carbon emissions by an average of 21.5% in CO₂-equivalent (CO₂-eq), which represents only 18.6% of the emissions estimated using the conventional reservoir-based accounting approach. XGBoost identified reservoir depth and hydraulic residence time as the primary controls on dam-induced carbon emissions.
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BibTeX
@article{shi2026dams,
title = {{Dams not to blame for all reservoir carbon emissions from retained organic carbon}},
author = {Wenqing Shi and Xiangyu Min and Ziqian Li and Kun Shi and Lin Zhu and Qingji Zhang and Hans W. Paerl and Erik Jeppesen and Boqiang Qin},
journal = {Science Advances},
year = {2026},
month = oct,
doi = {10.1126/sciadv.aeg7676},
url = {https://www.science.org/doi/abs/10.1126/sciadv.aeg7676},
note = {CC BY-NC},
}
RIS
TY - JOUR
TI - Dams not to blame for all reservoir carbon emissions from retained organic carbon
AU - Wenqing Shi
AU - Xiangyu Min
AU - Ziqian Li
AU - Kun Shi
AU - Lin Zhu
AU - Qingji Zhang
AU - Hans W. Paerl
AU - Erik Jeppesen
AU - Boqiang Qin
PY - 2026
DA - 2026/10/28
JO - Science Advances
DO - 10.1126/sciadv.aeg7676
UR - https://www.science.org/doi/abs/10.1126/sciadv.aeg7676
AB - Dams trap organic carbon (OC) and create carbon dioxide (CO₂) and methane (CH₄) emission hotspots within reservoirs, underlying the ongoing debate over their role in carbon emissions. However, even without dams, this labile OC would still decompose and emit CO₂ or CH₄ during downstream transport and after deposition in estuaries. Thus, relying solely on dammed reservoir observations to assess these emissions may introduce considerable bias. Here, we simulated both dammed and non-dammed scenarios for 5346 global reservoir dams to assess their impact on carbon emissions from retained OC. The results show that reservoir-only approaches overestimate dam-induced carbon emissions by neglecting baseline emissions under no-dam conditions. After baseline correction, dams increase carbon emissions by an average of 21.5% in CO₂-equivalent (CO₂-eq), which represents only 18.6% of the emissions estimated using the conventional reservoir-based accounting approach. XGBoost identified reservoir depth and hydraulic residence time as the primary controls on dam-induced carbon emissions.
SN - 2375-2548
ER -