Small, coastal temperate rainforest watersheds dominate organic carbon transport to the northeast Pacific Ocean

The northeast Pacific Coastal Temperate Rainforest (NPCTR) extending from southeast Alaska to northern California is characterized by high precipitation and large stores of recently fixed biological carbon. We show that 3.4 Tg-C yr-1 as DOC is exported from the NPCTR drainage basin to the coastal ocean. More than 56% of this riverine DOC flux originates from thousands of small (mean = 118 km2), coastal watersheds that comprise 22% of the NPCTR drainage basin. The average DOC yield from NPCTR coastal watersheds (6.20 g-C m-2 yr-1) exceeds that from Earth’s tropical regions by roughly a factor of three. The highest yields occur in small, coastal watersheds in the central NPCTR due to the balance of moderate temperature, high precipitation, and high soil organic carbon stocks. These findings indicate that DOC export from NPCTR watersheds may play an important role in regional-scale heterotrophy within near-shore marine ecosystems in the northeast Pacific. These are the datasets used in this analysis