We show that the Schnakenberg's entropy production rate in a master equation is lower bounded by a function of the weight of the Markov graph, here defined as the sum of the absolute values of probability currents over the edges. The result is valid for time-dependent nonequilibrium entropy production rates. Moreover, in a general framework, we prove a theorem showing that the Kullback-Leibler divergence between distributions $P\left(s\right)$ and $P^{\prime }\left(s\right):=P(m\left(s\right))$, where $m$ is an involution, $m(m\left(s\right))=s$, is lower bounded by a function of the total variation of $P$ and $P^{\prime }$, for any $m$. The bound is tight and it improves on Pinsker's inequality for this setup. This result illustrates a connection between nonequilibrium thermodynamics and graph theory with interesting applications.

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• Entropy production
• Stochastic thermodynamics
• Thermodynamics
• Master equation
• Probability theory