Yongqiang Zhou

• PhD in Water & Environment
• Professor at Nanjing Institute of Geography and Limnology Chinese Academy of Sciences

Shallow lakes are hotspots for carbon processing and important natural sources of methane (CH4) emission. Ebullitive CH4 flux may constitute the overwhelming majority of total CH4 flux, but the episodic nature of ebullition events makes determining both quantity and the controlling factors challenging. Here we used the world's longest running shall...

Globally, alpine glaciers hold a large quantity of dissolved organic matter (DOM) and are headwaters of numerous rivers supporting downstream heterotrophic metabolism. Yet, it remains unclear how glacial coverage and distance from glacial terminus affect the fate of DOM. Here, we elucidate DOM variability in glacial-fed streams on the Tibetan Plate...

Rainstorm events can flush large amounts of terrestrial organic-rich material into lakes that are used for drinking water. To date, few studies have been carried out to investigate how rainstorm events change the molecular composition, bio-lability, and flux of upstream-imported dissolved organic matter (DOM), which can impact the odor and taste of...

Harmful algal blooms have become increasingly frequent due to the dual pressure of excessive nutrient loading and climate change in recent years. Algal-derived dissolved organic matter (DOM) is a potentially large component of the labile organic matter pool, and also climate warming may affect the DOM pool, although the results on the latter so far...

Inland waters play an important role for the storage of chromophoric dissolved organic matter (CDOM) and outgassing of methane (CH4). However, to date, linkages between the optical dynamics of CDOM and dissolved CH4 levels remain largely unknown. We used multi-year seasonal data series (2012–2014) collected from Lake Taihu and 51 connecting channel...

Numerous rivers and lakes in the monsoon climate zone are heavily influenced by frequent rainstorms that mobilize dissolved organic matter (DOM) from pristine or urbanized environments into downstream lakes. Of particular concern is the mobilization of DOM from anthropogenic effluents, which are commonly enriched in aliphatic compounds that can be...

Terrestrial dissolved organic matter (DOM) is potentially reactive and, upon entering lake ecosystems, can be readily degraded to low-molecular-weight organic matter and dissolved CO2. However, to date, there has been limited research on the links between long-term variation in the composition of DOM and CO2 emissions from lakes. Lake Taihu is a la...

Anthropogenic eutrophication continuously degrades aquatic ecosystems and has led to a high frequency of massive cyanobacterial blooms in Taihu Lake since 1980. After bloom-forming cyanobacteria begin to disappear, substantial cyanobacterial scum accumulates and is degraded by microorganisms along the lakeshore. Several studies have revealed that c...

Compound drought–heatwaves (CDHWs) accelerate the warming and drying of soils, triggering soil compound drought–heatwaves (SCDHWs) that jeopardize the health of soil ecosystems. Nevertheless, the behavior of these events worldwide and their responses to climatic warming are underexplored. Here, we show a global escalation in the frequency, duration...

In recent years, the global carbon cycle has garnered significant research attention. However, details of the intricate relationship between planktonic bacteria, hydrochemistry, and dissolved organic matter (DOM) in inland waters remain unclear, especially their effects on lake carbon sequestration. In this study, we analyzed 16S rRNA, chromophoric...

Lakes are hotspots for the biogeochemical processing of carbon, including dissolved organic matter (DOM). A less degradable fraction of DOM, preserved for a long time, can be categorized as recalcitrant DOM (RDOM). Lake RDOM is an important but neglected carbon sink, and its characteristics and transformation processes remain largely unknown. Highl...

The world's 1.4 million lakes (≥10 ha) provide many ecosystem services that are essential for human well‐being; however, only if their health status is good. Here, we reviewed common lake health issues and classified them using a simple human health‐based approach to outline that lakes are living systems that are in need of oxygen, clean water and...

Terrestrial inputs and subsequent degradation of dissolved organic matter (DOM) in lake ecosystems can result in rapid depletion of dissolved oxygen (DO). Inputs of terrestrial DOM including organic acids can also lead to decreases in pH. However, to date, few studies have investigated the linkages between terrestrial DOM inputs, DO and pH levels i...

Due to the large spatiotemporal variability in the processes controlling carbon emissions from lakes, estimates of global lake carbon emission remain uncertain. Identifying the most reliable predictors of CO2 and CH4 concentrations across different hydrological features can enhance the accuracy of carbon emission estimates locally and globally. Her...

Stream ecosystem health assessments are crucial for the effective management of aquatic ecosystem service functions and the assessment of anthropogenic and climatic impacts on aquatic ecosystems. However, there is still a lack of comprehensive assessment methods based on complete ecosystem structures. This study improved an ecological health assess...

The source composition of chromophoric dissolved organic matter (CDOM) in lakes is closely related to regional environmental changes, human activities, and the carbon cycle. The spectral slope ratio (SR) is an important parameter of CDOM optical components, and combined with remote sensing technology, the source composition of CDOM can be tracked c...

Rivers receive, transport, and are reactors of terrestrial dissolved organic matter (DOM) and are highly influenced by changes in hydrological conditions and anthropogenic disturbances, but the effect of DOM composition on the dynamics of the bacterial community in rivers is poorly understood. We conducted a seasonal field sampling campaign at two...

Chromophoric dissolved organic matter (CDOM) can significantly influence underwater light fields, nutrient availability, and microbial activity; thus, it plays an essential role in physical, chemical, and biological processes in aquatic ecosystems. China has undergone significant changes in climate, water quality improvement, and human processes ov...

The presence of organic matter in lakes profoundly impacts drinking water supplies, yet treatment processes involving coagulants and disinfectants can yield carcinogenic disinfection by-products. Traditional assessments of organic matter, such as chemical oxygen demand (CODMn) and biochemical oxygen demand (BOD5), are often time-consuming. Alternat...

Alpine lake habitats are evolving into subalpine lakes under the scenario of climate change, where the vegetation are promoted due to increasing temperature and precipitation. The abundant terrestrial dissolved organic matter (TDOM) leached from watershed soil into subalpine lakes would undergo strong photochemical reaction due to the high altitude...

Alpine river and lake systems on the Tibetan Plateau are highly sensitive indicators and amplifiers of global climate change and important components of the carbon cycle. Dissolved organic matter (DOM) encompasses organic carbon in aquatic systems, yet knowledge about DOM variation throughout the river-lake aquatic continuum within alpine regions i...

Plain Language Summary Lakes of the northern hemisphere are covered by ice in winter, yet how freeze‐up may impact the partitioning and chemical composition of dissolved organic matter (DOM) remains largely unknown. Using field sampling and laboratory freeze‐up experiments on a set of lakes where dissolved organic carbon ranged from 2.8 to 36.0 mg...

The Eastern Route of the South-to-North Water Diversion Project (SNWDP-ER) is a large scale multi-decade infrastructure project aiming to divert substantial amounts of water (≈45 billion m3 yr−1) to alleviate water shortage in comparatively arid regions of northern China. The project has ramifications for hydrological connectivity and biogeochemica...

Lakes are hotspots for global carbon cycling, yet few studies have explored how rainstorms alter the flux, composition, and bio-lability of dissolved organic matter (DOM) in inflowing rivers using high-frequency monitoring. We conducted extensive campaigns in the watershed of Lake Taihu and made daily observations for three years in its two largest...

Plastics in the environment provide a new and unique habitat for microorganisms - known as the plastisphere. The microbial succession within the plastisphere and their potentials for plastic degradation in freshwater ecosystems is still not clear. Here, we investigated variation of microbial communities in plastisphere and their capacity to biodegr...

Large reservoirs are hotspots for carbon emissions, and the continued input and decomposition of terrestrial dissolved organic matter (DOM) from upstream catchments is an important source of carbon emissions. Rainstorm events can cause a surge in DOM input; however, periodic sampling often fails to fully capture the impact of these discrete rainsto...

We compiled a nationwide dataset of carbon dioxide (CO2) efflux from 1405 measurements, and found that lakes, reservoirs, and rivers emit a total of 61.9 ± 55.3 TgC as CO2 each year, corresponding to ~6.3% of the annual total national CO2 emission in 2020. Our analysis showed that the presence of anthropogenic disturbances in catchments strongly in...

Urbanization and agricultural land use can increase the transport of nutrients to fluvial ecosystems; yet, the overall impact of urban and nonpoint agricultural inputs on the composition, bio-lability, and the fate of fluvial dissolved organic matter (DOM) remains poorly understood. We investigated the optical and molecular composition and bio-labi...

Many factors have been reported to affect material cycling in lakes, but the combined and cascading impacts of external environmental factors and in-lake biota on lake carbon cycling are poorly understood. We elucidated the influencing pathways of geoclimatic factors, lake morphometry, land-use type, chemical and physical factors, and biological ta...

Secchi disk depth (SDD) is a simple but particularly important indicator for characterizing the overall water quality status and assessing the long-term dynamics of water quality for diverse global waters. For this reason, countless efforts have been made to collect SDD data from the field and through remote sensing systems. Many empirical and semi...

Nitrous oxide (N2O) is one of the six greenhouse gases stipulated in the Kyoto Protocol. Its greenhouse potential over the past century was 298 times that of CO2, and the concentration of atmospheric N2O has been continuously and rapidly increasing during the past hundred years. Shallow lakes are an important source of atmospheric N2O. In order to...

Identifying primary environmental drivers mediating the quantity and quality of sedimentary organic matter (OM) in climate‐sensitive alpine lakes is crucial to understanding the role of alpine lakes in greenhouse gas emissions and Earth's climate system. Here, we characterized various pools of OM of 20 alpine lakes across the Tibetan Plateau, inclu...

Inland waters play an important role in the global carbon cycle and are potential hotspots of greenhouse gas (GHG) production and emission. However, considerable uncertainty exists in GHG estimations from lakes on the Tibetan Plateau due, in part, to the lack of direct in situ observations and key predictor analyses. Considering that salinity is an...

Six decades field observation data series on submerged aquatic vegetation (SAV), water level and water quality from Lake Taihu were compiled to reveal the dynamics in coverage and species composition of SAV and their anthropogenic drivers. We found that both SAV species composition and coverage area declined significantly in Lake Taihu during the p...

Cyanobacterial bloom accumulation and dissipation frequently occur in Lake Taihu, a typically shallow, eutrophic lake due to wind wave disturbance. However, knowledge of the driving mechanisms of cyanobacterial blooms on underwater light attenuation is still limited. In this study, we collected a high-frequency in situ monitoring of the wind field,...

Intensified urbanization has been occurring in the eastern region of China in recent decades, and excessive industrial and household sewage has been discharged into lakes and reservoirs, which has directly lowered water quality and destructed the functions of aquatic ecosystems. Lakes and reservoirs are typically drinking water sources supplying wa...

Lakes play an important role in the biogeochemical cycling of dissolved organic matter (DOM) and the emission of methane (CH4). We investigated the concentration and effluxes of CH4 and then analyzed the corresponding driving factors in Lake Luoma, a key lake along the South-to-North Water Transfer Project. Our results indicated that Lake Luoma was...

The water regimes and biogeochemical cycles are remarkably affected by river damming and drought around the world. However, the dual effects on river water cycles have not yet attracted sufficient attention along the Yangtze River because of the relative consistency of annual water regimes. This study first explored the altered water cycle associat...

Lake Poyang has significant differences in hydrological characteristics between the flood and dry seasons. Unraveling the optical composition, bioavailability, fate, and balance of chromophoric dissolved organic matter (CDOM) and organic carbon fluxes in Lake Poyang under different hydrological conditions can help provide advanced schemes on carbon...

Thermal stratification in lakes has multiple physical, chemical, and ecological implications. Previous studies have identified the driving factors of thermal stratification in tropical and high‐latitude lakes, but their relative contributions in forming thermal structure among different deep reservoirs have received little attention. Here, the wate...

Cyanobacterial blooms are increasing in magnitude, frequency, and duration worldwide. However, our knowledge of cyanobacterial blooms dynamics and driving mechanisms is still limited due to their high spatiotemporal variability. To determine the potential driving mechanisms of cyanobacterial blooms in oligotrophic lakes, we collected a high-frequen...

Cyanobacterial blooms caused by phytoplankton Microcystis have occurred successively since 1980 in Lake Taihu, China, which has led to difficulty collecting clean drinking water. The effects of cyanobacterial scum-derived dissolved organic matter (DOM) on microbial population variations and of algal-derived filtrate and algal residual exudative org...

Urban rivers play a vital role in global methane (CH4) emissions. Previous studies have mainly focused on CH4 concentrations in urban rivers with a large amount of organic sediment. However, to date, the CH4 concentration in gravel-bed urban rivers with very little organic sediment has not been well documented. Here, we collected water samples from...

Lakes are hotspots of dissolved organic matter (DOM) degradation and play an active role in carbon cycles. Alpine lakes are under the most immediate impacts of climate change and act as sentinels of alpine ecosystem’s response to global warming, yet the primary environmental drivers of DOM variability in alpine lakes remain unidentified. Here, we s...

Chromophoric dissolved organic matter (CDOM) is crucial in the biogeochemical cycle and carbon cycle of aquatic environments. However, in inland waters, remotely sensed estimates of CDOM remain challenging due to the low optical signal of CDOM and complex optical conditions. Therefore, developing efficient, practical and robust models to estimate C...

Interactions between dissolved organic matter (DOM) and bacteria are central in the biogeochemical cycles of aquatic ecosystems; however, the relative importance of biodegradable dissolved organic carbon (BDOC) compared with other environmental variables in structuring the bacterial communities needs further investigation. Here, we investigated bac...

Lake Tianmu is an important source of drinking water, and its water quality can influence ecosystem service functions. Unraveling the sources and composition of chromophoric dissolved organic matter (CDOM) that can affect water treatment processes is necessary to maintain water supply safety and ecosystem service functioning of Lake Tianmu. Samples...

In the past few decades, China's rapid industrial activities and urbanization processes have greatly impacted the urban surface water ecosystem. The changes in the quality of urban surface water directly affect the supply and carbon cycling of urban waters. We collected 50 water samples from urban rivers, lakes, and reservoirs in the city of Changc...

Water clarity (generally quantified as the Secchi disk depth: SDD) is a key variable for assessing environmental changes in lakes. Using remote sensing we calculated and elucidated the SDD dynamics in lakes in the Inner Mongolia-Xinjiang Lake Zone (IMXL) from 1986 to 2018 in response to variations in temperature, rainfall, lake area, normalized dif...

Light climate is of key importance for the growth, community composition of submerged macrophytes in lakes and, they, in turn, are affected by lake depth and the degree of eutrophication. To test the relationships between submerged macrophyte presence and the ratio of Secchi disk depth (SDD) to water depth, i.e. SDD/depth, nutrients and wind, we co...

Eutrophication affects bacterial communities by fueling them with nutrients and carbon sources. While the influence of physicochemical conditions on bacterial communities is well studied, little is known about how dissolved organic matter (DOM) quality affects bacterial interspecific interactions and community composition with increasing eutrophica...

Large rivers are the main arteries for transportation of carbon to the ocean; yet, how hydrology and anthro-pogenic disturbances may change the composition and export of dissolved organic matter along large river continuums is largely unknown. The Yangtze River has a watershed area of 1.80 × 10 6 km 2. It originates from the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau a...

In the fields of phytoplankton ecology, water optics, and water color remote sensing, phytoplankton absorption properties represent the light absorption capacity of phytoplankton, which affects photosynthesis efficiency and carbon fixation. Here, the biomass, community composition, and the absorption properties of phytoplankton were measured alongs...

Water clarity (expressed as Secchi disk depth (SDD)) reflects light transmission capacity of a water body and influences growth of aquatic plants, aquatic organisms, and primary productivity. Here, we calibrated and validated a general model based on Landsat series data for deriving SDD of various inland waters across China. The quality of remotely...

Microbe-mediated transformation of dissolved organic matter (DOM) contributes substantially to the carbon dynamics and energy flow of aquatic ecosystems; yet, the temporal dynamics of bacterial communities in response to diverse DOM sources are scarcely known. Here, we supplied four distinct sources of DOM (algae-derived, macrophyte-derived, sewage...

Chromophoric dissolved organic matter (CDOM) plays an important role in the biogeochemical cycle and energy flow of aquatic ecosystems. Thus, systematic and comprehensive understanding of CDOM dynamics is critically important for aquatic ecosystem management. CDOM spans multiple study fields, including analytical chemistry, biogeochemistry, water c...

Light attenuation is considered as a sentinel for environmental change in lakes and has a profound influence on aquatic ecosystems. However, the spatial distribution of ultraviolet radiation (UVR) and photosynthetically active radiation (PAR) attenuation, and the underlying mechanisms are still not fully understood. We carried out a field investiga...

Long-term decreases in the incident total radiation and water clarity might substantially affect the underwater light environment in aquatic ecosystems. However, the underlying mechanism and relative contributions of radiation dimming and decreasing water clarity to the underwater light environment on a national or global scale remains largely unkn...

Thermal stratification is crucial for water quality and ecological processes in deep lakes and reservoirs and can be substantially affected by meteorological and hydrological processes in the catchment. However, how thermal stratification responds to rainfalls of different intensities and changing hydrological processes has not been documented very...

The bio-lability of chromophoric dissolved organic matter (CDOM) directly reflects its biodegradability potential, and also affects the migration and conversion of pollutants and impacts water quality. This study combines excitation-emission matrices and parallel factor analysis (EEMs-PARAFAC) with laboratory 28 days of bio-incubation experiments,...

Poyang Lake and Dongting Lake are the two largest freshwater lakes in China connected to the Yangtze River. Changes in the water quality of the two lakes are critical to the water security of the residents surrounding the lakes. Analyses of the optical properties, including chromophoric dissolved organic matter (CDOM) absorption and fluorescence sp...

River discharge carries suspended matter into lakes, reservoirs, estuaries, and coasts, resulting in obvious plumes in river mouths. River plumes are more likely to form in valley reservoirs due to the steep slopes in the basin, which may accelerate fluvial transport from upstream to the river mouth, causing a considerable particles load and increa...

Dissolved organic nitrogen (DON) accounts for a significant fraction of the dissolved nitrogen (N) pool in eutrophic lakes, and substantial components of DON are available for phytoplankton. However, long-term changes in DON concentrations in eutrophic lakes have been poorly documented, and the particulate-related internal cycling of DON at the mol...

Since the early 21st century, global climate change has been inducing rapid glacier retreat at an unprecedented rate. In this context, the melt ponds impart increasing unique footprints on the periglacial rivers due to their hydrodynamic connection. Given that bacterial communities control numerous ecosystem processes in the glacial ecosystem, expl...

Stable isotope tracers have been widely applied to water sources and evolution, transforming relations, and pollution sources of various water bodies. This study analyzed the spatial variations of δ2H and δ18O in river and lake waters during flooding season, and revealed the factors underlying their variations along the middle and lower reaches of...

Underwater light attenuation plays an important role in modulating aquatic ecosystems and is considered a sentinel of climate change and human activity. However, knowledge of the long-term exposure of underwater ultraviolet radiation (UVR) in aquatic ecosystem is still very limited. We carried out extensive UVR measurements in different seasons in...

Lakes actively transform nitrogen (N) and emit disproportionately large amounts of N2O relative to their surface area. Studies have investigated the relative importance of denitrification or nitrification on N2O emissions; however, the linkage between N2O efflux and dissolved organic nitrogen (DON) and carbon (DOC) remains largely unknown. Long-ter...

Subsurface chlorophyll maxima (SCM) are found in stratified lakes, reservoirs, and oceans. Spatial variations of the SCM magnitude, depth, and thickness during stratification and related factors were examined in a large, deep subtropical reservoir, Lake Qiandaohu. Significant spatial differences in the SCM parameters were found throughout the lake...

Dissolved organic matter (DOM) released from permafrost thaw greatly influences the biogeochemical cycles of, among others, downstream carbon, nitrogen and phosphorus cycles; yet, knowledge of the linkages between bacterial communities with permafrost DOM heterogeneity is limited. Here, we aim at unravelling the responses of bacterial diversities a...

Multiple spectroscopic technologies and chemometric analyses were combined to explore the compositional characteristics and Cu binding performance of biochar-derived dissolved organic matter (DOM). The DOM samples were extracted from biochars produced from lignocellulose-rich rapeseed cake (RSC) by pyrolysis at 300, 500, and 700 °C (i.e., RSC300, R...

The trophic state index (TSI) is a vital parameter for aquatic ecosystem assessment. Thus, information on the spatial and temporal distribution of TSI is critical for supporting scientifically sound water resource management decisions. We proposed a semi-analytical approach to remotely estimate TSI based on Landsat 8 OLI data for inland waters. The...

The Secchi disk depth (ZSD, m) has been used globally for many decades to represent water clarity and an index of water quality and eutrophication. In recent studies, a new theory and model were developed for ZSD, which enabled its semi-analytical remote sensing from the measurement of water color. Although excellent performance was reported for me...

Lake Hongze and Lake Luoma are two key lakes located in the middle reaches of the east line of the South-to-North Water Diversion Project. We attempted to unravel the sources and optical composition of CDOM for samples collected from these lakes using excitation-emission matrices (EEMs) and parallel factor analysis (PARAFAC). ① Three fluorescent co...

Dissolved organic matter (DOM) from alpine glaciers is highly biolabile and plays a vital role in the biogeochemical cycle of meltwater-impacted environments. To unravel the composition and interactions of DOM with the bacterial community in glacier and glacier meltwater, we conducted sampling of two different Tibetan Plateau glaciers and carried o...

Estuaries support the livelihood of ~ 75% of the world’s population and maintain high primary production in coastal waters, which are often subjected to strong tides and anthropogenic disturbances. There is a paucity of information on how the optical composition and bioavailability of chromophoric dissolved organic matter (CDOM) are influenced by t...

The impoundment of the Three Gorges Reservoir (TGR), the largest hydropower project in the world, has altered the sediment deposition and erosion regime of downstream-linked rivers and lakes. The extent to which the TGR impoundment has changed the surface areas of the two largest freshwater lakes in China, Lake Dongting and Lake Poyang, remains lar...

Phytoplankton phenology critically affects elements biogeochemical cycles, ecosystem structure, and productivity. However, our understanding about the phenological process and driving mechanism is still very limited due to the shortage of long-term observation data. We used all available daily MODIS-Aqua data from 2003 to 2017 to determine bloom st...

The valley reservoirs service as a critical resource for society by providing drinking water, power generation, recreation, and maintaining biodiversity. Management and assessment of the water environment in valley reservoirs are urgent due to the recent eutrophication and water quality deterioration. As an essential component of the water body, to...

Chromophoric dissolved organic matter (CDOM) is a fraction of dissolved organic matter that can strongly absorb light in the ultraviolet and blue regions and plays an important role in the biogeochemical cycling of carbon, nitrogen, and phosphorus. Unraveling the sources, optical composition, and corresponding spatial variabilities of CDOM can impr...

Fluvial plain lake watersheds are usually highly urbanized and have high concentrations of chromophoric dissolved organic matter (CDOM). CDOM derived from the connecting urban channels usually share strong terrestrial and anthropogenic signals and net inflow runoff (Qnet) to the lake serves as a proxy of residential household sewage input. We inves...