Methane production is being measured at 15-year-old 1-ha planted and naturally colonizing created wetlands at the Olentangy River Wetland Research Park (ORWRP) in central Ohio. Wetlands are known to produce methane due to their anaerobic conditions and high carbon concentrations, and due to methane’s inherent global warming potential it is important. As part of a larger study determining riverine wetland contributions to greenhouse gas emissions bimonthly gas samples were taken in 2010 using two different methods simultaneously. One of the objectives of this current study, aside from determining wetland methane emission rates, is to compare the two methods that previously were used at the ORWRP. Variances in methane emission rate have been observed year to year since 2006 with the greatest difference from 2008 to 2009, which corresponds to the change of methodology used. This study will test if methodology produced an artifact in the data, or whether the stochastic nature of methane production in the wetlands is the reason for the difference.
Results/Conclusions
There is no significant difference between the original plastic bag/PVC frame method (54.0 ± 22.4 gC·mֿ²·yr) and the newer rigid plastic container method (26.12 ± 8.31 gC·mֿ²·yr) for the unplanted wetland. There is no significant difference between the plastic bag/PVC frame method (18.0 ± 6.0 gC·mֿ²·yr) and the rigid plastic container (26.1 ± 8.3 gC·mֿ²·yr) for the planted wetland. The rates of the current study correspond with all the previous studies except for the 2009 study which used the new rigid plastic container method. This suggests the wetlands actually produced more methane in 2009, and the increase was not an artifact due to methodology.