Differential Trends in Iron Concentrations of Boreal Streams Linked to Catchment Characteristics

Increasing iron (Fe) concentrations have been reported for freshwaters across northern Europe over the last decades. This increase, together with elevated concentrations of dissolved organic carbon (DOC), leads to browning of freshwaters, which affects aquatic organisms, ecosystem functioning, biogeochemical cycles, and brings challenges to drinking water production. However, how such increasing trends in stream Fe concentrations reflect the contribution of different catchment sources remains poorly resolved. Here, we explored how catchment characteristics, that is, mires and coniferous soils, regulate spatial and temporal patterns of Fe in a boreal stream network. For this, we determined Fe speciation in riparian and mire soils, and studied temporal Fe dynamics in soil-water and stream-water over a span of 18 years. Positive Fe trends were found in the solution of the riparian soil, while no long-term trend was observed in the mire. These differences were reflected in stream-water, where three headwater streams dominated by coniferous cover also displayed positive Fe trends, whereas the mire dominated stream showed no trend. Surprisingly, the majority of higher order streams showed declining Fe trends, despite long-term increases in DOC. In addition, we found that an extreme drought event led to a prolonged release of Fe and DOC from the riparian soils, that could have long-term effects on stream Fe concentrations. Our results show that riparian forest soils can be major contributors to ongoing increases in freshwater Fe concentrations and that drought can further promote the release of Fe from organic soils.

Automated summary

Increasing iron concentrations in freshwaters across northern Europe have led to browning, affecting aquatic organisms and drinking water production. The contribution of different sources to stream iron concentrations is not well understood. This study investigated the role of riparian and mire soils in regulating iron patterns in a boreal stream network over 18 years. Results showed that riparian soils were major contributors to increasing freshwater iron concentrations, and drought events led to prolonged release of iron from organic soils, with potential long-term effects on stream iron concentrations.