Element fluxes through European forest ecosystems and their relationships with stand and site characteristics.
This paper describes a European wide assessment of element budgets, using available data on deposition, meteorology and soil solution chemistry at 121 Intensive Monitoring plots. Input fluxes from the atmosphere were derived from fortnightly or monthly measurements of bulk deposition and throughfall, corrected for canopy uptake. Element outputs from the forest ecosystem were derived by multiplying fortnightly or monthly measurements of the soil solution composition at the bottom of the root zone with simulated unsaturated soil water fluxes. Despite the uncertainties in the calculated budgets, the results indicate that: (i) SO4 is still the dominant source of actual soil acidification despite the generally lower input of S than N, due to the different behaviour of S (near tracer) and N (strong retention); (ii) base cation removal due to man-induced soil acidification is limited; and (iii) Al release is high in areas with high S inputs and low base status.
de Vries
W
W
Alterra, Wageningen University and Research Centre, Droevendaalse steeg 3, P.O. Box 47, NL-6700 AA Wageningen, The Netherlands. wim.devries@wur.nl
van der Salm
C
C
Reinds
G J
GJ
Erisman
J W
JW
D000393:Air Pollutants / Q000032:analysis; D000535:Aluminum / Q000032:analysis; D002118:Calcium / Q000032:analysis; D002713:Chlorine / Q000032:analysis; D002980:Climate; D017753:Ecosystem; D004602:Elements; D004784:Environmental Monitoring / Q000379:methods; D004785:Environmental Pollutants / Q000032:analysis*; D005060:Europe; D008274:Magnesium / Q000032:analysis; D009584:Nitrogen / Q000032:analysis; D011188:Potassium / Q000032:analysis; D012987:Soil / Q000032:analysis; D012989:Soil Pollutants / Q000032:analysis; D013431:Sulfates / Q000032:analysis; D013455:Sulfur / Q000032:analysis; D014197:Trees / Q000737:chemistry*; D014874:Water Pollutants, Chemical / Q000032:analysis
D000393:Air Pollutants; D004602:Elements; D004785:Environmental Pollutants; D012987:Soil; D012989:Soil Pollutants; D013431:Sulfates; D014874:Water Pollutants, Chemical; D002713:Chlorine; D013455:Sulfur; D000535:Aluminum; D008274:Magnesium; D009584:Nitrogen; D011188:Potassium; D002118:Calcium