Can forest-soil liming mitigate acidification of surface waters in Sweden?

Abstract

Acidification of surface waters and forest soils is severe in large parts of southern Sweden. The shallow groundwaters are also affected. Large scale liming of surface waters and streams is in operation, often combined with wetland liming to limit the effects of acid episodes, e.g. at snow melt. Acid episodes are perhaps the most severe problem in limed surface waters and in many as yet well buffered waters, because of temperature-layered acid inflow, often superficial. As a result of some investigations, a large scale forest liming programme covering 6.500–10.000 km2 was recently suggested. The main objectives of this forest liming programme are to retard cation depletion and to prevent nutrient imbalance and forest decline in acidified areas. This paper deals with the effects of forest soil liming on streams and surface waters. The response of water chemistry is very dependent on hydrological and soil properties. Although pH itself may be little affected by liming, the acidity (or negative ANC) decreases, inorganic Al-species decrease and the Al/BC-ratio increases in the runoff water. Especially interesting is that this is also true during acid episodes. This means that toxicity for acid sensitive biota decreases. These results indicate that large scale liming may have beneficial effects on surface water chemistry. Furthermore, as surface waters are expected to respond to smaller decreases in acid deposition than do forests soils, forest soil liming may allow less frequent liming of lakes. Consequently, forest soil liming in combination with the anticipated emission reductions may have very beneficial results on surface waters in certain areas of Sweden.