Journal ArticleDOI
Regional trends in aquatic recovery from acidification in North America and Europe
John L. Stoddard,Dean S. Jeffries,A. Lükewille,Thomas A. Clair,Peter J. Dillon,Charles T. Driscoll,Martin Forsius,M. Johannessen,Jeffrey S. Kahl,James H. Kellogg,A. Kemp,Jaakko Mannio,Don Monteith,Peter S. Murdoch,S. Patrick,A. Rebsdorf,Brit Lisa Skjelkvåle,M. P. Stainton,T. Traaen,H. van Dam,Katherine E. Webster,J. Wieting,A. Wilander +22 more
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This article analyzed regional trends between 1980 and 1995 in indicators of acidification (sulphate, nitrate and base-cation concentrations, and measured (Gran) alkalinity) for 205 lakes and streams in eight regions of North America and Europe.Abstract:
Rates of acidic deposition from the atmosphere (‘acid rain’) have decreased throughout the 1980s and 1990s across large portions of North America and Europe1,2. Many recent studies have attributed observed reversals in surface-water acidification at national3 and regional4 scales to the declining deposition. To test whether emissions regulations have led to widespread recovery in surface-water chemistry, we analysed regional trends between 1980 and 1995 in indicators of acidification (sulphate, nitrate and base-cation concentrations, and measured (Gran) alkalinity) for 205 lakes and streams in eight regions of North America and Europe. Dramatic differences in trend direction and strength for the two decades are apparent. In concordance with general temporal trends in acidic deposition, lake and stream sulphate concentrations decreased in all regions with the exception of Great Britain; all but one of these regions exhibited stronger downward trends in the 1990s than in the 1980s. In contrast, regional declines in lake and stream nitrate concentrations were rare and, when detected, were very small. Recovery in alkalinity, expected wherever strong regional declines in sulphate concentrations have occurred, was observed in all regions of Europe, especially in the 1990s, but in only one region (of five) in North America. We attribute the lack of recovery in three regions (south/central Ontario, the Adirondack/Catskill mountains and midwestern North America) to strong regional declines in base-cation concentrations that exceed the decreases in sulphate concentrations.read more
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Ecological and toxicological effects of inorganic nitrogen pollution in aquatic ecosystems: A global assessment.
Julio A. Camargo,Álvaro Alonso +1 more
TL;DR: In this article, a global assessment of the effects of inorganic nitrogen pollution in aquatic ecosystems is presented, with detailed multi-scale data, and three major environmental problems: (1) increasing the concentration of hydrogen ions in freshwater ecosystems without much acid-neutralizing capacity, resulting in acidification of those systems; (2) stimulating or enhancing the development, maintenance and proliferation of primary producers, leading to eutrophication of aquatic ecosystems; (3) reaching toxic levels that impair the ability of aquatic animals to survive, grow and reproduce.
Journal ArticleDOI
Emerging threats and persistent conservation challenges for freshwater biodiversity
Andrea J. Reid,Andrew K. Carlson,Irena F. Creed,Erika J. Eliason,Peter Gell,Pieter T. J. Johnson,Karen A. Kidd,Tyson J. MacCormack,Julian D. Olden,Steve J. Ormerod,John P. Smol,William W. Taylor,Klement Tockner,Jesse C. Vermaire,David Dudgeon,Steven J. Cooke +15 more
TL;DR: Efforts to reverse global trends in freshwater degradation now depend on bridging an immense gap between the aspirations of conservation biologists and the accelerating rate of species endangerment.
Journal ArticleDOI
Threats to the running water ecosystems of the world
Björn Malmqvist,Simon D. Rundle +1 more
TL;DR: In this article, the authors reviewed long-term trends in the factors that currently impact running waters with the aim of predicting what the main threats to rivers will be in the year 2025, and concluded that the overriding pressure on running water ecosystems up to 2025 will stem from the predicted increase in the human population, with concomitant increases in urban development, industry, agricultural activities and water abstraction, diversion and damming.
Journal ArticleDOI
Acidic Deposition in the Northeastern United States: Sources and Inputs, Ecosystem Effects, and Management Strategies
Charles T. Driscoll,Gregory B. Lawrence,Arthur J. Bulger,Thomas J. Butler,Christopher S. Cronan,Christopher Eagar,Kathleen F. Lambert,Gene E. Likens,John L. Stoddard,Kathleen C. Weathers +9 more
Journal ArticleDOI
The transport sector as a source of air pollution
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors consider the variety of transport impacts on the atmospheric environment by reviewing three examples: urban road traffic and human health, aircraft emissions and global atmospheric change, and the contribution of sulphur emissions from ships to acid deposition.
References
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Journal ArticleDOI
A Nonparametric Trend Test for Seasonal Data With Serial Dependence
TL;DR: In this article, an extension of the Mann-Kendall test for trend in seasonal (e.g., monthly) hydrologic time series is presented, which is robust against nonnormality and censoring.
Journal ArticleDOI
Long-Term Effects of Acid Rain: Response and Recovery of a Forest Ecosystem
TL;DR: In this article, long-term data from the Hubbard Brook Experimental Forest, New Hampshire, suggest that although changes in stream pH have been relatively small, large quantities of calcium and magnesium have been lost from the soil complex and exported by drainage water because of inputs of acid rain and declines in atmospheric deposition of base cations.
Journal ArticleDOI
The effects of climatic warming on the properties of boreal lakes and streams at the Experimental Lakes Area, northwestern Ontario
David W. Schindler,Suzanne E. Bayley,Brian R. Parker,Ken G. Beaty,Dana R. Cruikshank,E. J. Fee,Eva U. Schindler,M. P. Stainton +7 more
TL;DR: A period of prolonged warmer, drier-than-normal weather in northwestern Ontario during the 1970s and 1980s resulted in severe forest fires that caused dramatic changes to lake and stream catchments as mentioned in this paper.
Journal ArticleDOI
Steep declines in atmospheric base cations in regions of Europe and North America
Lars O. Hedin,Lars O. Hedin,Lennart Granat,Gene E. Likens,T. Adri Buishand,James N. Galloway,Thomas J. Butler,Henning Rodhe +7 more
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors report evidence for steep declines in the atmospheric concentrations of base cations (sum of non-sea-salt Ca2+, Mg2+, K+ and Na+) over the past 10 to 26 years from high-quality precipitation chemistry records in Europe and North America.
Journal ArticleDOI
Nonparametric Tests for Trend in Water Quality
Gerald van Belle,James P. Hughes +1 more
TL;DR: In this article, the relative power of nonparametric methods for trends in water quality has been investigated and two classes of procedures, i.e., intrablock methods and aligned rank methods, have been proposed.