Abstract
Historically, Clearwater Lake on the Precambrian Shield near Sudbury, Ontario, has received significant acid deposition from local smelters and remote sources. From 1.46×106 tonnes (t) in 1973, local SO2 emissions fell to.64×106 t in 1991. To assess lake response, temporal trends were examined for 26 water quality variables with records dating from 1973–1981. But for brief drought-induced reversals, aqueous SO 2−4 fell steadily from 590 µeq/L in 1973 to under 320 µeq/L in 1991–92, while pH rose from 4.3 in 1973 to exceed 5 in May 1992 for the first time on record. Disproportionate lake response to local SO2 emission reductions suggests that remote-source acid deposition is an important determinant of Clearwater Lake status. Chloride adjusted base cation, Al and Si trends mirror SO 2−4 trends indicating that geochemical weathering is decelerating as acid deposition declines. Lake levels of toxic metals Cu and Ni derived from local smelter emissions seem to have fallen appreciably in recent years and there has been a small surge in biological activity that may have declined abruptly in 1991. With its unique long term record, continued sampling in Clearwater Lake is advised to monitor the success of local and remote SO2 emission reduction commitments in the U.S. and Canada.
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Bodo, B.A., Dillon, P.J. (1994). De-Acidification Trends in Clearwater Lake near Sudbury, Ontario 1973–1992. In: Hipel, K.W., McLeod, A.I., Panu, U.S., Singh, V.P. (eds) Stochastic and Statistical Methods in Hydrology and Environmental Engineering. Water Science and Technology Library, vol 10/3. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-017-3083-9_21
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-017-3083-9_21
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