Chemical Weathering and CO2 Consumption of Chishuihe River Basin,Guizhou Province

Carbon sink produced during rock weathering is critical to global carbon cycles. In this work, we analyzed the major ion chemistry of the Chishuihe River Basin, and the major ion composition of the Chishuihe River system and the principal component analysis was applied for estimating the weathering rate and atmospheric CO₂ consumption via the rock chemical weathering. The results demonstrated that the chemical composition of the river was dominated by Ca²⁺, Mg²⁺, HC and S. The average concentration(317.88 mg/L) of the total dissolved solids within the Chishuihe River was higher than the average value (65 mg/L) of world rivers. The Gibbs graph combining major ion element ratio analysis indicated that the catchment major ion composition mainly originated from rock weathering, primarily from carbonate weathering, sparsely from silicate weathering. Carbonate and silicate weathering contributed 70.77% and 5.03% separately to the dissolved loads. The anthropogenic and precipitation impact was limited. According to calculation based on principal component and the ion composition characteristics, the chemical weathering rate was 126.716 t/(km²·a), significantly higher than that of the Yellow River and Yangtze River, and also higher than the average rate of the global major rivers. The CO₂ consumption flux based on annual average runoff was 10.96×10⁹ mol/a, and the CO₂ consumption rate by chemical weathering was 5.79×10⁵ mol/(km²·a).