PREDICTING RECOVERY IN ACIDIFIED FRESHWATERS BY THE YEAR 2010, AND BEYOND

With new funding from RESAS as part of the Strategic Science Programme (2011-2016), long term projections of surface water acidification made to the year 2010 as part of the RECOVER:2010 were compared to observed chemistry.

In 1999, as part of the EU RECOVER:2010 project, the MAGIC (Model of Acidification of Groundwater In Catchments) model was used to project acidification of acid-sensitive European surface waters in the year 2010, given implementation of the Gothenburg Protocol to the Convention on Long-Range Transboundary Air Pollution (LRTAP).  A total of 202 sites in 10 regions in Europe were studied.

With new funding from RESAS, staff in the Managing Catchments and Coast group of the James Hutton Insitute compared the forecasts made during the RECOVER:2010 project with measurements for the year 2010, to give a “ground truth” evaluation of the model. To find out more about this study click here to access the paper published in Environmental Science and Technology.