Natural and Anthropogenic Influences

• Main Authors: Waters Of Northern Sweden, N. D. Cory, Acta Universitatis, Agriculturae Sueciae
• Other Authors: The Pennsylvania State University CiteSeerX Archives
• Format: Text
• Language: English
• Subjects: Northern Sweden
• Online Access: http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/summary?doi=10.1.1.632.3641; http://pub.epsilon.slu.se/1178/1/Thesis_neil_cory.pdf

The issue of acidification of surface waters has been one of the central environmental problems in Sweden for the last four decades. Aluminium (Al) is critical to the issue of acidification because it is often the combination of depressed pH along with elevated concentrations of Al, and specifically inorganic Aluminium (Ali), which are implicated in the decline and disappearance of aquatic organisms. In northern Sweden where sulphate deposition has not been as high as in the south, chronic soil acidification has not taken place; instead it is episodic acidification, especially during the spring snow melt that is important. The presence of organic matter complicates the issue of acidification and Al by providing both natural acidity and abundant binding capacity that reduces the inorganic fraction of Al. This thesis addresses the issue of anthropogenic influence in northern Sweden by examining Al solubility, speciation and modelling across spatial and temporal scales that range from a hillslope or episode to a landscape and decades. At the hillslope scale Al transport and speciation were strongly influenced by the organic phase. No front of Al mobilization was seen in the mineral soil that would be indicative of chronic soil acidification. The superficial, transiently saturated flow pathways in the