CRITICAL ACID LOADS FOR DIFFERENT SOILS OF THE MEDITERRANEAN ENVIRONMENT

In order to establish strategies to reduce the pollutant emisions, the United Nations Economic Commission for Europe (UNECE) has proposed se veral methodologies which allows quantification of the Critical Loads (CL) for acid deposition in Europe. Nevertheless, the Steady State Mas s Balance and, particularly, the Profile Model - the most common of th ese methodologies - has been developed for soils with specific acidity problems in Northern Europe and it should be validated for the Medite rranean continental regions. The purpose of this work is to evaluate t he Critical Loads of some characteristic pedological ecosystems of the Madrid Community Territory within a north-south transect which also c an represents other Mediterranean areas. With some amendments, we cons ider the Profile model to be applicable.