Tracing recovery from acidification - a multivariate approach (ICP Waters report 69/2002)

Abstract

This report presents a method based on use of multivariate statistics to detect trends in aqutic biota as a results of chemical recovery from acidification. Three datasets from Norway, Sweden and UK are used in the work. The result shows that the method can trace signals of recovery in the benthic community in lakes and rivers that are recovering chemically. This includes localities that are recovering, but still are in a very acidic state. It also includes localities where acidification has been slight, and the recovery has occurred over a pH gradient where the lake or river would be classified as not acidified.