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Recovery of Soil Water, Groundwater, and Streamwater From Acidification at the Swedish Integrated Monitoring Catchments

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Abstract

Recovery from anthropogenic acidification in streams and lakes is well documented across the northern hemisphere. In this study, we use 1996–2009 data from the four Swedish Integrated Monitoring catchments to evaluate how the declining sulfur deposition has affected sulfate, pH, acid neutralizing capacity, ionic strength, aluminum, and dissolved organic carbon in soil water, groundwater and runoff. Differences in recovery rates between catchments, between recharge and discharge areas and between soil water and groundwater are assessed. At the IM sites, atmospheric deposition is the main human impact. The chemical trends were weakly correlated to the sulfur deposition decline. Other factors, such as marine influence and catchment features, seem to be as important. Except for pH and DOC, soil water and groundwater showed similar trends. Discharge areas acted as buffers, dampening the trends in streamwater. Further monitoring and modeling of these hydraulically active sites should be encouraged.

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Acknowledgments

The Swedish Integrated Monitoring program has been funded by the Swedish Environmental Protection Agency. This study would not have been possible without the efforts of all the people who collected and analyzed samples from the IM sites, and those who maintained the data archive. The authors thank Associate Professor Stephan Köhler, SLU, and Therese Zetterberg, IVL for the total deposition data and, together with Associate Professor Martyn Futter, SLU, for valuable scientific discussions during the preparation of this paper. The authors also thank Ola Langvall, SLU, and Ivan Clegg, SLU for preparing the catchment maps.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Aquatic Sciences and Assessment, Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences, SLU, P.O. Box 7050, 750 07, Uppsala, Sweden

    Stefan Löfgren, Lage Bringmark & Lars Lundin

  2. Swedish Geological Survey, SGU, P.O. Box 670, 751 28, Uppsala, Sweden

    Mats Aastrup, Lotta Lewin-Pihlblad & Bo Thunholm

  3. IVL Swedish Environmental Research Institute Ltd, P.O. Box 5302, 400 14, Gothenburg, Sweden

    Hans Hultberg & Gunilla Pihl Karlsson

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  1. Stefan Löfgren
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  2. Mats Aastrup
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  5. Lotta Lewin-Pihlblad
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  8. Bo Thunholm
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Correspondence to Stefan Löfgren.

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Löfgren, S., Aastrup, M., Bringmark, L. et al. Recovery of Soil Water, Groundwater, and Streamwater From Acidification at the Swedish Integrated Monitoring Catchments. AMBIO 40, 836–856 (2011). https://doi.org/10.1007/s13280-011-0207-8

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