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Research article2014Peer reviewedOpen access

Long-term effects on nitrogen and benthic fauna of extreme weather events: Examples from two Swedish headwater streams

Löfgren, Stefan; Grandin, Ulf; Stendera, Sonja

Abstract

Climate change is expected to cause an increased frequency of extreme events such as heavy floods and major storms. Such stochastic events have an immediate impact on surface water quality, but the long-term effects are largely unknown. In this study, we assess long-term monitoring data from two Swedish headwater catchments affected by extreme weather events. At one site, where nitrogen effects in soil water, groundwater, and stream water were studied after storm-felling and subsequent forest dieback from bark beetle attack, long-term (>5 years) but relatively modest (generally <1 mg L-1) increases in ammonium (NH4-N) and nitrate (NO3-N) concentrations were observed in the various aqueous media. At the other site, where effects on benthic fauna were studied in a stream impacted by extreme geophysical disturbances caused by rainstorm-induced flashflood, only short-term (1 year) effects were revealed both regarding diversity and composition of species.

Keywords

Storm-felling; Bark beetle; Nitrate; Rainstorm; Flashflood; Benthic macroinvertebrates

Published in

AMBIO: A Journal of the Human Environment
2014, Volume: 43, pages: 58-76 Publisher: SPRINGER