Abstract

Climate change is predicted to lead to an increase in extreme rainfall and, in coastal areas, sea-salt deposition events. The impacts of these two climatic extremes on stream hydrochemistry were separately evaluated via a novel watering manipulation at the GAyenrdsjon experimental catchment, SW Sweden. In summer 2004, a 2000 m(2) hillslope draining to a defined stream reach was brought to a high-flow hydrological steady state for a 9 day period by sustained addition of 'clean' water using a distributed sprinkler system. Marine ions were then added, to generate a realistic 'sea salt' episode. A remarkably well constrained hydrological response was observed, such that a simple two-compartment mixing model could reasonably well reproduce observed conservative tracer (chloride, Cl) measurements, and 78% of added water was recovered in runoff. Stream base cation concentrations and acidity responded predictably to clean water and sea-salt addition, with the former leading to an increase in pH and acid neutralising capacity, and the latter to episodic acidification through hydrogen ion and aluminium displacement from soil exchange sites by marine base cations. Anion responses were less predictable: water addition caused a flush of nitrate, but this was apparently independent of rainfall composition. Sulphate remained near-constant during clean water addition but declined sharply during sea-salt addition, indicative of a strong, pH-dependent solubility control on leaching, presumably adsorption/desorption in the mineral soil. Most strikingly, dissolved organic carbon (DOC) concentrations were stable during clean water addition but varied dramatically in response to sea-salt addition, exhibiting a strong negative correlation with Cl concentrations in water draining the organic soil. These observations provide a robust experimental verification of the hypothesis that deposition chemistry, through its influence on acidity and/or ionic strength, has a major influence on DOC leaching to surface waters.

Keywords

Acidity; Climate change; DOC; Ionic strength; Hydrological episodes; Nitrogen leaching; Sea salt; Sulphate adsorption; Gardsjon

Published in

Biogeochemistry
2012, Volume: 107, number: 1-3, pages: 455-469
Publisher: SPRINGER

UKÄ Subject classification

Geosciences, Multidisciplinary


Publication identifier

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10533-010-9567-6

Permanent link to this page (URI)

https://res.slu.se/id/publ/89112