Acidification of inland waters
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EDITORIAL
Acidification of inland waters This article belongs to Ambio’s 50th Anniversary Collection. Theme: Acidification Lars J. Tranvik
Acidification was one of the most recognized environmental concerns of the late twentieth century. The industrial revolution and its rapid increase in the combustion of coal and oil resulted in emissions to the atmosphere of oxides of sulfur and nitrogen, followed by deposition on land and waters. The effects are manifold. Soils get acidified and forest growth is impaired, metals are mobilized as the groundwater gets acidic; this results in increased metal concentrations in drinking water wells, corrosion is accelerated, and our cultural heritage is degraded as statues and other constructions from stones with calcium carbonate dissolve. Being the recipients of water that runs off the surrounding landscape, inland waters—streams, rivers, and lakes—are particularly vulnerable. Lakes integrate processes in the surrounding watershed. Hence, many of the natural and anthropogenic conditions of lakes are the function of processes at much larger scales, including, e.g., natural flow with gravity of organic and inorganic matter, and agricultural fertilizers and chemicals, and they also respond to altered export of matter from their watersheds due to changing land use, temperature, and precipitation. Accordingly, lakes are not only valuable ecosystems and natural resources per se, but also sentinels of environmental change beyond their own boundaries (Williamson et al. 2008). This applies also to acidification—acids are
deposited on land and water, transported downstream along with other chemical species that are mobilized from soils due to increased acidity, with subsequent consequences for aquatic life. Scandinavia and northeastern United States have in common that regional industrial areas, up to more than 1000 km away, affect the chemistry of local precipitation. Moreover, the geological conditions of these areas result in poorly buffered soils and waters, which make them vulnerable to acidification. Hence, in hindsight, it is not surprising that it is in the lakes and streams of these regions that acidification was first recognized. Here, we highlight several influential papers published in Ambio that were important for the early discovery and understanding of acidification of inland waters (Almer et al. 1974; Schofield 1976; Henriksen et al. 1988). The authors of two of the pioneering Ambio articles give their personal views and behind the paper stories (Almer and Dickson 2021; Brakke 2021), and two other scientists who were highly influential in the recognition of acidification present their reflections on those papers and their importance (Likens 2021; Rosseland 2021). Together, these documents provide an exciting window into the history of the science of acidification of lakes and rivers. There is currently a broad consensus on the causes and consequences of anthropogenic acidification. However, similar to other environmental issues, not the least global
Ó Royal Swedish Acade
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