World Flux Data Set 2016

Abstract

The World Flux Data Set contains a total of 49 variables (14 categorical and 35 numeric) including sediment-water fluxes of oxygen, ammonium, nitrite, nitrate plus nitrite, nitrate, dissolved inorganic phosphorus and dissolved silica (DSi) as well as sample location, date of measurement, measurement techniques, and a variety of water column and sediment characteristics (see Metadata Table 2 for full description). There were very few studies that contained data for all of these variables; most had 30 to 70% of all variables available. In addition to the general criteria indicated above, we only included data sets in our analysis that reported sampling location, literature source, date of measurement, light conditions at the sediment surface, description of the measurement technique (i.e., intact cores or in-situ chambers), stirring method, core or chamber area, and at least one sediment-water flux measurement for one of the analytes of interest. Most studies reported fluxes of several analytes for multiple time periods during a year and additional values for water column and sediment conditions. In a limited number of cases, the minimum data needed for inclusion in the data set were not reported in the paper containing the sediment flux data. In these cases we were able to obtain the required data by contacting authors or we were able to find other papers containing the needed data. The current data set contains 2879 lines of data and is also made available on the web (www.gonzo.cbl.umces.edu)