Lg. Wesselink et al., LONG-TERM CHANGES IN WATER AND SOIL CHEMISTRY IN SPRUCE AND BEECH FORESTS, SOLLING, GERMANY, Environmental science & technology, 29(1), 1995, pp. 51-58
With declining sulfur emissions in western Europe, the degree and time
scales of reversibility of soil and freshwater acidification;are of m
ajor interest. We analyzed long-term changes (1969-1991) in the chemis
try of; bulk precipitation, throughfall water, soil water, and exchang
eable base cations in a beech and a spruce forest in Solling, Germany.
Time trends in dissolved and exchangeable pools of base cations in th
e soils were compared with simulations from a simple mechanistic soil
chemistry model to identify the processes controlling long-term change
s in soil chemistry. In the early 1970s, profound acidification occurr
ed in the spruce and beech soils due to increasing concentrations of d
issolved SO4 After 1976, atmospheric deposition of SO4 decreased signi
ficantly as a result of reduced industrial emissions. nevertheless, ac
idification continued in the spruce soil due to declining atmospheric
inputs of Ca and Mg and continuously high dissolved SO4 in the soil. I
n the beech soil, with lower deposition levels, smaller declines of ba
se cation deposition, and a more diluted soil solution, reduced atmosp
heric inputs of SO4 in the 1980s started off a recovery of the soil's
base saturation.