Water chemistry and dissolved organic carbon trends in lakes from Canada’s Atlantic Provinces: no recovery from acidification measured after 25 years of lake monitoring

Abstract

We analyzed chemistry trends for 66 Atlantic Canada lakes using data collected from 1983 to 2007, as well as from 1990 to 2007 and 2000 to 2007 for the original 66 and a further 25 lakes that were later added to the network. Though receiving the lowest acid deposition in eastern North America, the region’s waters are seriously affected by acid rain because of poorly buffering soils and bedrock. Earlier work had shown that despite large decreases in sulfate deposition, lake pH and calculated acid neutralization capacity (ANCc) had not increased as they had elsewhere in North America and Europe. Despite a 50% decrease in acid deposition, a further 10 years of lake chemistry data showed a regional increase in ANCc only at the beginning of the sampling period but no increase since the early 1990s. There were also no increases in pH and base cations in the region’s lakes. We show a regional increase in Gran titration ANC (ANCG) from 2000 to the present, which we ascribe to increases in dissolved organic carbon that is probably due to a regional increase in annual air temperatures.