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Inferring biogenic and anthropogenic carbon dioxide sources across an urban to rural gradient

  • Ecosystem Ecology
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Abstract

We continuously monitored CO2 concentrations at three locations along an urban-to-rural gradient in the Salt Lake Valley, Utah from 2004 to 2006. The results showed a range of CO2 concentrations from daily averages exceeding 500 p.p.m. at the city center to much lower concentrations in a non-urbanized, rural region of the valley. The highest values were measured in the wintertime and under stable atmospheric conditions. At all three sites, we utilized weekly measurements of the C and O isotope composition of CO2 for a 1-year period to evaluate the CO2 sources underlying spatial and temporal variability in CO2 concentrations. The results of an inverse analysis of CO2 sources and the O isotope composition of ecosystem respiration (δ18 O R) showed large contributions (>50%) of natural gas combustion to atmospheric CO2 in the wintertime, particularly at the city center, and large contributions (>60%) of biogenic respiration to atmospheric CO2 during the growing season, particularly at the rural site. δ18 O R was most enriched at the rural site and more isotopically depleted at the urban sites due to the effects of irrigation on ecosystem water pools at the urban sites. The results also suggested differences in the role of leaf versus soil respiration between the two urban sites, with seasonal variation in the contribution of leaf respiration at a residential site and relatively constant contributions of leaf respiration at the city center. These results illustrate that spatial and temporal patterns of urban CO2 concentrations and isotopic composition can be used to infer patterns of energy use by urban residents as well as plant and soil processes in urban areas.

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Acknowledgements

We thank A. Schauer, A. Guercio, S. Bush, and C. Cook for their assistance, the Salt Lake City Corporation and Kennecott Utah Copper Corporation for access to their property, and D. R. Bowling for helpful comments about an earlier version of this manuscript. This research was supported by the US National Science Foundation grant ATM 02157658 and by the US Department of Energy.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Earth System Science and Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, University of California, Irvine, CA, 92697, USA

    D. E. Pataki

  2. Department of Botany and Microbiology, University of Oklahoma, Norman, OK, 73019, USA

    T. Xu & Y. Q. Luo

  3. Department of Biology, University of Utah, Salt Lake City, UT, 84112, USA

    J. R. Ehleringer

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  1. D. E. Pataki
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  2. T. Xu
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Correspondence to D. E. Pataki.

Additional information

Communicated by Russell Monson.

Appendix

Appendix

An example of the Bayesian inversion input data, constraints, and results is given for the dataset collected on January 21, 2004 at the Residential site. CT, δ13CT, and δ18OT were measured directly and are shown below with the standard deviation in parentheses. CB, δ13CB, and δ18OB were interpolated from NOAA CMDL data as described in the text. The prior constraints are specified below. For δ18OR the constraints were modeled from climatic data and source water measurements as the most depleted expected value for soil respiration and the most enriched expected value for leaf respiration during the sampling period. The unknown values CN, CG, CR, and δ18OR were then estimated by sampling the results from equation (5) with a Metropolis-Hastings algorithm as described in the text. The resulting marginal distributions for about 5000 accepted estimates are shown in Figure 11 and the means and standard deviations are given below.

Input data

CT

429.1 (3.2)

δ13 CT

−11.1 (0.1)

δ18 OT

38.3 (0.1)

Prior constants

CN, CG, CR

>0

CN + CG + CR

CT − CB

δ18 OR

23‰ < δ18 OR < 30‰

Final estimates

CN

30.0 (4.8)

CG

10.3 (4.9)

CR

3.5 (3.1)

δ18 OR

28.5 (0.6)

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Pataki, D.E., Xu, T., Luo, Y.Q. et al. Inferring biogenic and anthropogenic carbon dioxide sources across an urban to rural gradient. Oecologia 152, 307–322 (2007). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00442-006-0656-0

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