Stream Ecosystem Metabolism at the Virginia Coast Reserve: A Comparison of the Conventional Open Water Technique and Eddy Correlation

Inland waters transform or store over half of the carbon they receive, making their benthic metabolism significant to the global carbon budget. However, the conventional open water technique for measuring benthic metabolism in these systems relies on a prediction of gas exchange across the air-water interface. This reliance increases the uncertainty of results. To improve benthic metabolism measurements we combined the conventional open water technique with the eddy correlation technique, which does not share this limitation. This poster presents a series of parallel measurements with the two techniques in a coastal stream at the VCR-LTER. The open water technique provided multi-day measurements during which the eddy correlation technique was used to measure fluxes at high temporal resolution over shorter intervals, allowing direct comparisons between the two at specific times. The combination of techniques is complementary, with eddy correlation ground-truthing the longer term measurements made with the open water technique. Differences between the measured fluxes will be examined and their interpretation will be aided with a line of supportive data. 

Related Materials and Graphics: 

Underwater image of eddy correlation instruments