Contemporary Controls on Terrestrial Carbon Characteristics in Temperate and Sub‐Tropical Australian Wetlands

Abstract

Terrestrial carbon stored in soils and freshwater environments is estimated to have absorbed about 29% of global anthropogenic CO 2 emissions that occurred between (IPCC, 2021. However, this carbon is only removed from the contemporary atmosphere gas balance if it is effectively stored in a depositional sink such as the sediments of lakes, reservoirs, swamps and estuaries-collectively described as wetlands (Mendonca et al., 2017). In contrast, mineralization and respiration during temporary storage in soils may promote carbon remobilization into the atmosphere (Doetterl et al., 2016). Wetlands in both natural and agricultural landscapes thus play an essential role in atmospheric CO 2 sequestration, despite their low spatial extent in comparison to land