MOdern River archivEs of Particulate Organic Carbon: MOREPOC

Abstract. The supply of particulate organic carbon (POC) associated with terrigenous solids transported to the ocean by rivers plays a significant role in the global carbon cycle. To advance our understanding of the source, transport, and fate of fluvial POC from regional to global scales, databases of riverine POC are needed, including elemental and isotope composition data from contrasted river basins in terms of geomorphology, lithology, climate, and anthropogenic pressure. Here, we present a new, open-access, georeferenced, global database called Modern River Archives of Particulate Organic Carbon (MOREPOC) version 1.0, featuring data on POC in suspended particulate matter (SPM) collected at 231 locations across 118 major river systems. This database includes 3,424 SPM data entries, among which 2,943 with POC content, 3,260 with stable carbon isotope (δ¹³C) values, 2,018 with radiocarbon activity (Δ¹⁴C) values, 1,838 with total nitrogen content, and 309 with aluminum-to-silicon mass ratios (Al / Si). The MOREPOC database aims at being used by the Earth System community to build comprehensive and quantitative models for the mobilization, alteration, and fate of terrestrial POC. The database is made available on the Zenodo repository in machine-readable formats as data table and GIS shapefile at https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.6541925 (Ke et al., 2022).