Integrated Assessment of Acid‐Deposition Effects on Lake Acidification
Publication: Journal of Environmental Engineering
Volume 118, Issue 1
Abstract
An integrated assessment model is used to estimate emission effects on regional lake acidification and fish viability in two regions of North America (Adirondack Park, New York, and the Boundary Waters region of northern Minnesota). An uncertainty analysis is employed to estimate the likely range of possible impacts. Based on emission projections for the United States and Canada, lake acidification in these two regions appears likely to improve slowly over the next two decades. An acid‐rain control program will accelerate the recovery of acidic lakes at Adirondack Park, with a projected decrease over the no‐control case of approximately 2–11% in the number of lakes below pH 5.5 and a 0.4–6% increase in the number of lakes potentially able to support brook or lake trout by the year 2010. For Boundary Waters, the expected improvements are negligible since deposition levels are relatively low. Our analysis does demonstrate a potential for larger or smaller improvements in these two regions, with lower probabilities of occurrence. Uncertainties in regional lake chemistry and aquatic biology dominate the overall uncertainty in acidification effects estimated for these two regions, within the limitations of the analysis.
Get full access to this article
View all available purchase options and get full access to this article.
References
1.
Fay, J., Golomb, D., and Kumar, S. (1986). “Erratum.” Atmos. Envir., 20(6), 1315.
2.
Galloway, J. N., Norton, S. A., and Church, M. R. (1983). “Fresh water acidification from atmospheric deposition of sulfuric acid: A conceptual model,” Envir. Sci. Tech., 17(11), 541A–545A.
3.
Gherini, S. A., Mok, L., Hudson, R. J. M., Davis, G. F., Chen, C. W., and Goldstein, R. A. (1985). “The ILWAS model: Formulation and application.” Water Air Soil Pollut., 26(4), 425–459.
4.
Hales, J. M. (1982). “The MAP3S/RAINE precipitation chemistry network: Statistical overview for the period 1976–1980.” Atmos. Envir., 16(7), 1603–1631.
5.
Henriksen, A. (1979). “A simple approach for identifying and measuring acidification of freshwater.” Nature, 278(5704), 542–545.
6.
Henriksen, A., and Brakke, D. F. (1988). “Sulfate deposition on surface waters.” Envir. Sci. Tech., 22(1), 8–14.
7.
Hornberger, G. M., and Cosby, B. J. (1985). “Selection of parameter values in environmental models using sparse data: A case study.” Appl. Math. Comput., 17, 335–355.
8.
Hornberger, G. M., Cosby, B. J., and Galloway, J. N. (1986). “Modeling the effects of acid deposition: Uncertainty and spatial variability in estimation of long‐term sulfate dynamics in a region.” Water Resour. Res., 22(8), 1293–1302.
9.
Jaffe, P. R., and Ferrara, R. A. (1984). “Modeling sediment and water column interactions for hydrophobic pollutants, parameter discrimination and model response to input uncertainty.” Water Res., 18(9), 1169–1174.
10.
Johnson, D. W., Nilsson, I. S., Reuss, J. O., Seip, H. M., and Turner, R. S. (1985). “Predicting soil and water acidification, proceedings of a workshop.” Report ORNL/TM‐9258, Oak Ridge Nat. Lab., Oak Ridge, Tenn.
11.
Johnson, C. B., Sullivan, T. J., and Blick, D. J. (1989). “Defining regional population of lakes for the assessment of surface water quality.” Water Resour. Bull., 25(3), 565–572.
12.
Labieniec, P. A., Small, M. J., and Cosby, B. J. (1989). “Regional distributions of lake chemistry predicted by mechanistic and empirical lake acidification models.” Regional acidification models: Geographic extent and time development, J. Kämäri, D. F. Brakke, A. Jenkins, S. A. Norton and R. F. Wright, eds., Springer‐Verlag, Berlin, Germany, 185–202.
13.
Landers, D. H., Overton, W. S., Linthurst, R. A., and Brakke, D. F. (1988). “Eastern lake survey.” Envir. Sci. Tech., 22(2), 128–135.
14.
Lung, W.‐S. (1987). “Lake acidification model: Practical tool.” J. Envir. Engrg., 113(4), 901–915.
15.
Marmorek, D. R., Jones, M. L., Minns, C. K., and Elder, F. C. (1990). “Assessing the potential extent of damage in inland fisheries in eastern Canada due to acidic deposition: I. Development and evaluation of a simple site model.” Can. J. Fish Aquatic Sci., 47(1), 55–66.
16.
Matthias, C. S., and Lo, A. K. (1986). “Application and evaluation of the Fay and Rosenzweig long‐range transport model.” Atmos. Envir., 20(10), 1913–1921.
17.
McGowin, C. R., Leadenham, D. J., Parkes, J. B., Miller, M. J., and Fan, S. C. (1986). Sensitivity analysis of electric utility emissions in the U.S. Electric Power Res. Inst., Palo Alto, Calif.
18.
McKay, M. D., Beckman, R. J., and Conover, W. J. (1979). “A comparison of three methods for selecting values of input variables in the analysis of output from a computer code.” Technometrics, 21(2), 239–245.
19.
McNaughton, D. J. (1981). “Relationships between sulfate and nitrate ion concentrations and rainfall pH for use in modeling applications.” Atmos. Envir., 15(6), 1075–1079.
20.
NAPAP's emission projections. (1987). Nat. Resour. Defense Council, Washington, D.C., Oct.
21.
Placet, M., Streets, D. G., and Williams, E. R. (1986). “Environmental trends associated with the fifth national energy policy plan.” ANL/EES‐TM‐323, Argonne Nat. Lab., Springfield, Va.
22.
Posch, M., and Kämäri, J. (1990). “Modeling regional acidification of Finnish lakes.” Impact models to assess regional acidification, J. Kämäri, ed., Kluwer Academic, Dordrecht, The Netherlands, 145–166.
23.
Reckhow, K. H., Black, R. W., Stockton, T. B., Vogt, J. D., and Wood, J. G. (1987). “Empirical models of fish response to lake acidification.” Can. J. Fish Aquatic Sci., 44(8), 1432–1442.
24.
Rubin, E. S. (1990). “Characterizing uncertainty in integrated environmental models.” Environmental models: Emissions and consequences, J. Fenhann, H. Larsen, G. A. Mackenzie, and B. Rasmussen, eds., Elsevier, New York, N.Y., 399–413.
25.
Rubin, E. S., Marnicio, R. J., Henrion, M., Small, M. J., and McRae, G. J. (1986). Development of an operational level II acid deposition assessment model. Ctr. for Energy and Envir. Studies, Carnegie Mellon Univ., Pittsburgh, Pa., May.
26.
Schaefer, D. A., Driscoll, C. T., van Derason, R., and Yatsko, C. P. (1990). “The episodic acidification of Adirondack Lakes during snowmelt.” Water Resour. Res., 26(7), 1639–1647.
27.
Schecher, W. D., and Driscoll, C. T. (1988). “Principles and applications of surface water acidification models.” Hazard assessment of chemicals, 6, J. Saxena ed., Hemisphere Publishing, New York, N.Y., 187–224.
28.
Schindler, D. W., Mills, K. H., Malley, D. F., Findlay, D. L., Shearer, J. A., Davies, I. J., Turner, M. A., Linsey, G. A., and Cruikshank, D. R. (1985). “Long‐term ecosystem stress: The effects of years of acidification of a small lake.” Sci, 228(4706), 1395–1401.
29.
Schindler, D. W., Kaslan, S. E. M., and Hesslein, R. H. (1989). “Biological impoverishment in lakes of the midwestern and northeastern United States from acid rain.” Envir. Sci. Tech., 23(5), 573–580.
30.
Schnoor, J. L., Nikolaidis, N. P., and Glass, G. E. (1986). “Lake resources at risk to acidic deposition in the upper Midwest.” J. Water Pollut. Control Fed., 58(2), 139–148.
31.
Shannon, J. D. (1981). “A model of regional long term average sulfur atmospheric pollution, surface removal and net horizontal flux.” Atmos. Envir., 15(5), 689–701.
32.
Small, M. J., and Sutton, M. C. (1986). “A direct distribution model for regional aquatic acidification.” Water Resour. Res., 22(13), 1749–1758.
33.
Small, M. J., Labieniec, P. A., and Sutton, M. C. (1987). “Modeling distributions of aquatic chemistry in regions impacted by acid deposition.” Systems Analysis in Water Quality Management, M. B. Beck, ed., Pergamon Press, Oxford, England, 161–172.
34.
Small, M. J., Sutton, M. C., and Milke, M. W. (1988). “Parametric distributions of regional lake chemistry: Fitted and derived.” Envir. Sci. Tech., 22(2), 196–204.
35.
Small, M. J., Bloyd, C., Keeler, G., and Marnicio, R. J. (1989). “Stochastic simulation of meteorological variability for long‐range atmospheric transport: 2. Long‐term statistical models.” Atmos. Envir., 23(12), 2825–2840.
36.
Sullivan, T. J. (1990). “Historical changes in surface water acid‐base chemistry in response to acid deposition.” NAPAP State of Sci. and Tech. Report Number 11, Nat. Acid Precipitation Assessment Program, Washington, D.C.
37.
U.S. Canadian memorandum of intent on transboundary air pollution. (1982). U.S. Envir. Protection Agency, Washington, D.C., Nov.
38.
Venkatram, A.,McNaughton, D., and Karamchandani, P. K. (1990). “Relationships between atmospheric emissions and deposition/air quality.” NAPAP State of Sci. and Tech. Report Number 8, Nat. Acid Precipitation Assessment Program, Washington, D.C.
39.
Wright, R. F. (1988). “Acidification of lakes in the eastern United States and southern Norway: A comparison.” Envir. Sci. Tech., 22(2), 178–182.
40.
Wright, R. F., and Henriksen, A. (1983). “Restoration of Norwegian lakes by reduction in sulfur deposition.” Nature, 305(5933), 422–424.
Information & Authors
Information
Published In
Journal of Environmental Engineering
Volume 118 • Issue 1 • January 1992
Pages: 120 - 134
Copyright
Copyright © 1992 ASCE.
History
Published online: Jan 1, 1992
Published in print: Jan 1992
Authors
Metrics & Citations
Metrics
Citations
Download citation
If you have the appropriate software installed, you can download article citation data to the citation manager of your choice. Simply select your manager software from the list below and click Download.