Acid deposition and watershed characteristics in relation to lake chemistry in northeastern Minnesota

Technical Report · Tue Jan 01 04:00:00 EST 1985

OSTI ID:6917744

Rapp, G; Allert, J D; Liukkonen, B W; Loucks, O L; Glass, G E

The relationship between lake sensitivity to atmospheric acidic inputs and the neutralization capacity of watersheds is examined for 267 lakes in northeastern Minnesota. Three water chemistry/sensitivity measures (color, sulfate, and alkalinity) are correlated with variables representative of precipitation and sulfate inputs, hydrology, and the acid-neutralization capacity of various watershed components. An ordinal scale for ranking bedrock and surficial deposit neutralization capacity is presented. The watershed variables found to account for the largest percentages of the variability in measured color, sulfate, and alkalinity levels are determined. The results illustrate important averaging properties of watersheds from small headwater systems to large drainages and the difficulty in obtaining correlations for some water-quality measures (e.g., alkalinity) when some variables, such as soils and land cover, are available only as large-area averages.

• Research Organization: Environmental Protection Agency, Duluth, MN (USA). Environmental Research Lab.
• OSTI ID: 6917744
• Report Number(s): PB-87-116372/XAB; EPA-600/J-85/448
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

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54 ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES
ACID NEUTRALIZING CAPACITY
ACID RAIN
ACIDIFICATION
AIR POLLUTION
ATMOSPHERIC PRECIPITATIONS
CHEMICAL ANALYSIS
CHEMISTRY
COLOR
FEDERAL REGION V
GEOCHEMISTRY
LAKES
LAND USE
MATHEMATICS
MINNESOTA
NORTH AMERICA
OPTICAL PROPERTIES
ORGANOLEPTIC PROPERTIES
OXYGEN COMPOUNDS
PHYSICAL PROPERTIES
POLLUTION
RAIN
REGRESSION ANALYSIS
STATISTICS
SULFATES
SULFUR COMPOUNDS
SURFACE WATERS
USA
WATER CHEMISTRY
WATER POLLUTION
WATERSHEDS