Soil CO2 Uptake in Deserts and Its Implications to the Groundwater Environment

Recent studies of soil carbon cycle in arid and semi-arid ecosystems demonstrated that there exists an abiotic CO2 absorption by saline-alkali soils (Aa) at desert ecosystems and suggested potential contributions of CO2 dissolution beneath deserts to the terrestrial ecosystems carbon balance. However, the overall importance of such soil CO2 uptake is still undetermined and its implications to the groundwater environment remain unaddressed. In this manuscript, a simple method is proposed for the direct computation of Aa from the total soil CO2 flux (Fa) as well as for the evaluation of Aa importance to Fa. An artificial soil-groundwater system was employed to investigate the implications to groundwater environment and it was found that soil CO2 uptake in deserts can contribute a possible influence on the evolution of the groundwater environment, providing that the absorbed CO2 largely remained in the soil-groundwater system.