IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/nat/natcom/v11y2020i1d10.1038_s41467-020-15064-8.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Fresh groundwater discharge insignificant for the world’s oceans but important for coastal ecosystems

Author

Listed:
  • Elco Luijendijk

    (University of Göttingen)

  • Tom Gleeson

    (University of Victoria)

  • Nils Moosdorf

    (Leibniz Centre for Tropical Marine Research (ZMT)
    Institute of Geosciences, Kiel University)

Abstract

The flow of fresh groundwater may provide substantial inputs of nutrients and solutes to the oceans. However, the extent to which hydrogeological parameters control groundwater flow to the world’s oceans has not been quantified systematically. Here we present a spatially resolved global model of coastal groundwater discharge to show that the contribution of fresh groundwater accounts for ~0.6% (0.004%–1.3%) of the total freshwater input and ~2% (0.003%–7.7%) of the solute input for carbon, nitrogen, silica and strontium. However, the coastal discharge of fresh groundwater and nutrients displays a high spatial variability and for an estimated 26% (0.4%–39%) of the world’s estuaries, 17% (0.3%–31%) of the salt marshes and 14% (0.1–26%) of the coral reefs, the flux of terrestrial groundwater exceeds 25% of the river flux and poses a risk for pollution and eutrophication.

Suggested Citation

  • Elco Luijendijk & Tom Gleeson & Nils Moosdorf, 2020. "Fresh groundwater discharge insignificant for the world’s oceans but important for coastal ecosystems," Nature Communications, Nature, vol. 11(1), pages 1-12, December.
    • Handle: RePEc:nat:natcom:v:11:y:2020:i:1:d:10.1038_s41467-020-15064-8
    DOI: 10.1038/s41467-020-15064-8
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-020-15064-8
    File Function: Abstract
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1038/s41467-020-15064-8?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:nat:natcom:v:11:y:2020:i:1:d:10.1038_s41467-020-15064-8. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Sonal Shukla or Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.nature.com .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.