A call to action: The need for evaluation of carbon storage by lacustrine large woody debris

Abstract

Abstract Global climate change and the push to develop Natural Climate Solutions have increased urgency around the need to quantify, capture, and store carbon to reduce atmospheric concentrations of carbon dioxide—but we may be overlooking a potentially important, long‐term carbon sink. Carbon stored in large woody debris (LWD) in lakes is largely missing from local and global carbon budgets. Waterlogged LWD may remain relatively intact in cold, low‐oxygen hypolimnetic regions for decades to centuries, while LWD buried in lake‐bottom sediments may store carbon for millennia. We postulate that lacustrine LWD may be an important component of local and global carbon budgets, and modern land‐use effects (deforestation, agriculture, stream flow changes) may be reducing inputs of LWD into long‐term lacustrine carbon pools. Quantifying lacustrine LWD, particularly in large lakes, is logistically challenging, resulting in a data gap in carbon budgets. Here, we propose that new aerial and underwater technologies be employed to map and quantify littoral LWD and deposits of sunken and buried LWD to estimate carbon storage and the role of lacustrine LWD in regional and global carbon cycling.