A central objective of the LOIS Community Research Programme was to provide
estimates of the land-ocean flux of chemical species from the LOIS study a
rea. In the absence of detailed information on the concentration of most of
the dissolved and particulate-associated chemical constituents, it has pro
ved necessary to make use of the relatively infrequent samples collected in
the UK Harmonised Monitoring Scheme, in order to estimate chemical fluxes
for the LOIS rivers. In these circumstances, standard procedures may provid
e unreliable results, and a new approach has been developed to derive impro
ved estimates of chemical flux from the LOIS study area. This approach is b
ased on the generation of detailed synthetic time series of concentration,
which are used to estimate the likely errors associated with different flux
calculation procedures, especially those resulting from differences in the
timing of chemographs and hydrographs during storm events. The approach wa
s applied on a river by river and determinand by determinand basis to ident
ify and to employ the best methods for computing fluxes of 45 chemical dete
rminands from the LOIS study area during the period 1992-1996. (C) 2000 Els
evier Science B.V. All rights reserved.