Research And Monitoring Of Precipitation Chemistry In The United States

How damaging is acid rain? Current opinions differ widely, in part because for every proposed link between acid rain and adverse environmental effects an alternative explanation based on other phenomena can be or has been proposed, and in many cases cannot be readily dismissed. The specific areas addressed in this volume include the emissions of sulfur and nitrogen oxides, precipitation chemistry, atmospheric sulfates and visibility, surface water chemistry, sediment chemistry and abundance of diatom taxa, fish populations, and forest productivity. The book then draws conclusions about the acid deposition-phenomenon relationship, identifying phenomena which are directly acid deposition-caused and suggesting others apparently caused by human activities unrelated to acid deposition.

Data comparability is a stated or implied goal of a number of networks today (for example, the Utility Acid Precipitation Study Program [UAPSP]). This concept is indeed very important if a research objective such as the "national objective" on precipitation chemistry monitoring is to be met using the combination of all the existing precipitation chemistry monitoring networks in North America. An analysis of the definition of data comparability shows that two steps are involved in establishing data comparability of two data sets: (1) to judge the adequacy of the data sets toward accomplishing the objective and (2) to determine the uncertainty of each data set and that of the combined data set.