Modeling and monitoring of long-term acidification in an upland catchment of the Western Ore Mountains, SE Germany.

Modeling and monitoring of acidification patterns in a limed forest catchment in the Ore Mountains, SE Germany are presented. A lumped-parameter model, MAGIC, satisfactorily reproduced the main parameters of stream water chemistry. Despite repeated whole-catchment liming, between 1993 and 1999 stream water pH increased from 4.3 to only 4.6, while calcium concentrations declined slightly. Stream water sulfate concentration declined from 687 to 396 microeq l(-1), and the pronounced effect of deposition decline during the 1990s was probably more important than liming.