oa Unravelling Organic Carbon Sources in the Largest Tributary of the Congo River using Compound Specific Isotopes of Plant-Wax Lipids

In the Kasai Tributary, lands has been undergoing unprecedented deforestation, due to population growth and higher dependencies on cultivated lands. This land cover change is predicted to continue. With this study we aim to enhances our understanding of carbon sources and the origins of eroded soils, while also offering insights into biomarker transport times within a unique multi-biome catchment in tropical African river systems. We do so by studying bulk organic carbon, n-alkanoic acids and n-alkanes compositions and compound-specific isotopic properties (d13C, d2H, ?14C).