Estimates of critical acid loads and exceedances for forest soils across the conterminous United States |
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Authors: | McNulty Steven G Cohen Erika C Moore Myers Jennifer A Sullivan Timothy J Li Harbin |
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Institution: | USDA Forest Service, Southern Global Change Program, 920 Main Campus Drive, Suite 300, Raleigh, NC 27606, USA. steve_mcnulty@ncsu.edu |
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Abstract: | Concern regarding the impacts of continued nitrogen and sulfur deposition on ecosystem health has prompted the development of critical acid load assessments for forest soils. A critical acid load is a quantitative estimate of exposure to one or more pollutants at or above which harmful acidification-related effects on sensitive elements of the environment occur. A pollutant load in excess of a critical acid load is termed exceedance. This study combined a simple mass balance equation with national-scale databases to estimate critical acid load and exceedance for forest soils at a 1-km(2) spatial resolution across the conterminous US. This study estimated that about 15% of US forest soils are in exceedance of their critical acid load by more than 250eqha(-1)yr(-1), including much of New England and West Virginia. Very few areas of exceedance were predicted in the western US. |
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