Lake Dissolved Organic Matter Quantity and Quality : Variability across Temporal and Spatial Scales

Surface waters receive large amounts of dissolved organic matter (DOM) via runoff from land. The DOM is rich in organic carbon that serves as an energy source for the aquatic biota. During uptake of this energy, aquatic organisms mineralize organic carbon. The resulting inorganic carbon is partially released to the atmosphere as carbon dioxide and methane that are greenhouse gases, and which are of concern for the ongoing global warming. The rate at which organic carbon is mineralized depends strongly on DOM quantity and quality that vary with respect to both time and space. In this thesis, DOM quantity and quality were addressed using spectroscopic methods that build on the absorptive and fluorescent properties of chromophoric DOM (CDOM). New techniques to measure CDOM absorption and fluorescence were applied and further developed that allowed us to present novel CDOM variability patterns. Addressing the lake-rich Scandinavian landscape, strong focus was placed on water retention by lakes that tightly links to lake DOM quantity and quality. An analysis of 24,742 lakes from seven large Swedish river systems indicated that the majority of lakes in Sweden exchange their water within one year. From headwaters to the Sea, summed lake volumes in the catchments of lakes were found to increase at rates comparable to discharge, which indicated effective water renewal along flow. A strong relationship between lake water retention and CDOM was apparent and further investigated based on samples from a lake district to a regional scale. Results from in situ high-frequency monitoring of CDOM absorption in a eutrophic humic lake showed intra-annual variability patterns known from oligotrophic lake systems. The patterns for CDOM absorption contrasted results obtained for synchronously measured partial pressures of carbon dioxide that showed diurnal signals. Measurements of CDOM fluorescence and DOC concentrations indicated lake-internal DOM production. A comparison of these results with results from addressing 560 lakes distributed across Sweden, showed that a well-calibrated CDOM fluorescence measurement captures signals from lake-internal DOM production. I conclude that improved CDOM fluorescence measurements are promising to address lake-internally produced DOM