Assessing the Impact of Amazon Floodplain Dynamics on CO2 Emissions: A Satellite-Model Synthesis

The CO₂ emissions from inland waters in Amazon Basin constitute a critical, yet often underrepresented, component of the global carbon budget. While the region is widely recognized as a vital carbon sink due to its vast forests, its extensive aquatic networks, particularly floodplains, act as significant natural sources of atmospheric CO₂. However, current process-based biogeochemical models usually fail to capture the temporal extent of floodplains. This limitation propagates into substantial uncertainties in the estimated CO₂ emissions from Amazonian inland waters, particularly from floodplains. In this work, we are using the satellite-observations-based product GIEMS-D3 to take a deep dive into Amazon floodplain dynamics. Through comparison with the process-based model ORCHILEAK, we aim to explore which and to what extent biotic and abiotic factors have impacts on the floodplain dynamics and associated CO₂ emissions. The findings from this study will provide key constraints for refining biogeochemical models, leading to more accurate representations of inland water CO₂ emissions and a better-constrained global carbon budget.