Long-term water-chemistry measurements from multiple Elbe River monitoring stations establish a baseline for carbonate-system variability and were used to assess the alkalinity transport potential. The dataset from 1959 to 1977 was digitized from handwritten notes provided by Dr. Mewius (Kempe 1982). The water chemistry data from 1984 to 2017 (e.g., pH, water temperature, and major ions) was obtained from the Fachinformationssystem (FIS) der FGG Elbe (data source: www.fgg-elbe.de, accessed on 2021-02-26).To generate a single river chemistry time series, data from (Zollenspieker (Strom-km 598,7), Geesthacht (Strom-km 585,9), Schnackenburg (Strom-km 474,5), Boizenburg (Strom-km 559,0), Doemitz (Strom-km 505,0), and Hamburg Waterworks (Strom-km ~623,1) were used. Saturation state of calcite and aragonite were calculated using phreeqpython, a Python wrapper of the PhreeqC engine (Vitens 2021) with pH, water temperature, total alkalinity, and major ions as major input, and phreeqc.dat as database for the thermodynamic data (Parkhurst and Appelo 2013).

The study was additionally supported by the Ocean Alkalinity Enhancement (OAE) R&D Program (https://www.carbontosea.org/).---The data originates from standard river monitoring programs conducted by FGG Elbe. According to section 3.1 of ARGE Elbe documentation, surface water samples in the Elbe monitoring network were collected at approximately 1 m below the surface using a Teflon water sampler (ARGE Elbe, 2000). This near-surface depth provides a representative sample of river water while avoiding surface contamination and bottom sediment disturbance.