Soil and Water modelling

Dynamic models including soil and water chemistry can provide a key input to emission reduction agreements by establishing the time-scale of the ecosystem recovery from acidification or eutrophication.

Dynamic models of acidification are currently well developed and represent a demonstration of the use of such tools within the Convention.

Such models provide the possibility to determine how long it will take to reach the critical chemistry at a given deposition load and to determine the chemistry to be expected at a given timescale in response to a given deposition reduction. They can also be used to determine the load required to meet a chemical criteria within a given timescale.

ICP IM plays a key role in this activity by providing detailed and consistent physical and chemical data and long time series of observations of input and output fluxes for key sites against which model performance can be assessed and key uncertainties identified.

ICP Waters has been strongly involved in the development of the MAGIC model for modelling of surface water acidification, which has been applied at a range of ICP Waters sites across Europe.