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Critical Loads of Acid Deposition for Wilderness Lakes in the Sierra Nevada (California) Estimated by the Steady-State Water Chemistry Model

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Abstract

Major ion chemistry (2000–2009) from 208 lakes (342 sample dates and 600 samples) in class I and II wilderness areas of the Sierra Nevada was used in the Steady-State Water Chemistry (SSWC) model to estimate critical loads for acid deposition and investigate the current vulnerability of high elevation lakes to acid deposition. The majority of the lakes were dilute (mean specific conductance = 8.0 μS cm−1) and characterized by low acid neutralizing capacity (ANC; mean = 56.8 μeq L−1). Two variants of the SSWC model were employed: (1) one model used the F-factor and (2) the alternate model used empirical estimates of atmospheric deposition and mineral weathering rates. A comparison between the results from both model variants resulted in a nearly 1:1 slope and an R 2 value of 0.98, suggesting that the deposition and mineral weathering rates used were appropriate. Using an ANClimit of 10 μeq L−1, both models predicted a median critical load value of 149 eq ha−1 year−1 of H+ for granitic catchments. Median exceedances for the empirical approach and F-factor approach were −81 and −77 eq ha−1 year−1, respectively. Based on the F-factor and empirical models, 36 (17 %) and 34 (16 %) lakes exceeded their critical loads for acid deposition. Our analyses suggest that high elevation lakes in the Sierra Nevada have not fully recovered from the effects of acid deposition despite substantial improvement in air quality since the 1970s.

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Acknowledgments

The authors thank the US Forest Service and the Region 5 Air Resource Management program, particularly Trent Proctor, for providing funding and support in the collection of water samples. The authors acknowledge Neil Berg for providing annual reports of the water chemistry and sampling, and for his instrumental role in establishing lake sampling protocols for data used in this study. The authors thank the staff at the US Forest Service Air Resource Management Lab (ARML) in Fort Collins, CO for providing the chemical analysis of the lake water samples. The authors would also like to thank the anonymous reviewers for their time and comments to help improve this manuscript.

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  1. Department of Geological Engineering, Montana Tech of the University of Montana, 1300 W. Park St., Butte, MT, 59701, USA

    Glenn D. Shaw

  2. School of Social Science, Humanities and Arts, University of California, Merced, 5200 North Lake Rd., Merced, CA, 95343, USA

    Ricardo Cisneros & Donald Schweizer

  3. Department of Environmental Sciences, University of California, Riverside, 2324 Geology Building, Riverside, CA, 92521, USA

    James O. Sickman

  4. Pacific Southwest Research Station, USFS, 4955 Canyon Crest Dr., Riverside, CA, 92507, USA

    Mark E. Fenn

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  1. Glenn D. Shaw
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Correspondence to Glenn D. Shaw.

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Shaw, G.D., Cisneros, R., Schweizer, D. et al. Critical Loads of Acid Deposition for Wilderness Lakes in the Sierra Nevada (California) Estimated by the Steady-State Water Chemistry Model. Water Air Soil Pollut 225, 1804 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11270-013-1804-x

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