The Effects of Acid Rain on Ecosystems

Not all fish, shellfish, or the insects that they eat can tolerate the same amount of acid.
An ecosystem is a community of plants, animals and other organisms along with their environment
including the air, water and soil. Everything in an ecosystem is connected. If something harms one part of
an ecosystem – one species of plant or animal, the soil or the water – it can have an impact on everything
else.
Effects of Acid Rain on Fish and Wildlife
The ecological effects of acid rain are most clearly seen in aquatic environments, such as streams, lakes,
and marshes where it can be harmful to fish and other wildlife. As it flows through the soil, acidic rain
water can leach aluminum from soil clay particles and then flow into streams and lakes. The more acid
that is introduced to the ecosystem, the more aluminum is released.
Some types of plants and animals are able to tolerate acidic waters and moderate amounts of aluminum.
Others, however, are acid-sensitive and will be lost as the pH declines. Generally, the young of most
species are more sensitive to environmental conditions than adults. At pH 5, most fish eggs cannot hatch.
At lower pH levels, some adult fish die. Some acidic lakes have no fish. Even if a species of fish or animal
can tolerate moderately acidic water, the animals or plants it eats might not. For example, frogs have a
critical pH around 4, but the mayflies they eat are more sensitive and may not survive pH below 5.5.
Effects of Acid Rain on Plants and Trees
Dead or dying trees are a common sight in areas effected by acid rain. Acid rain leaches aluminum from
the soil. That aluminum may be harmful to plants as well as animals. Acid rain also removes minerals
and nutrients from the soil that trees need to grow.
At high elevations, acidic fog and clouds might strip nutrients from trees’ foliage, leaving them with brown
or dead leaves and needles. The trees are then less able to absorb sunlight, which makes them weak
and less able to withstand freezing temperatures.
Buffering Capacity
Many forests, streams, and lakes that experience acid rain don’t suffer effects because the soil in those
areas can buffer the acid rain by neutralizing the acidity in the rainwater flowing through it. This capacity
depends on the thickness and composition of the soil and the type of bedrock underneath it. In areas
such as mountainous parts of the Northeast United States, the soil is thin and lacks the ability to
adequately neutralize the acid in the rain water. As a result, these areas are particularly vulnerable and
the acid and aluminum can accumulate in the soil, streams, or lakes.
Episodic Acidification
Melting snow and heavy rain downpours can result in what is known as episodic acidification. Lakes that
do not normally have a high level of acidity may temporarily experience effects of acid rain when the
melting snow or downpour brings greater amounts of acidic deposition and the soil can’t buffer it. This
short duration of higher acidity (i.e., lower pH) can result in a short-term stress on the ecosystem where a
variety of organisms or species may be injured or killed.
Nitrogen Pollution
It’s not just the acidity of acid rain that can cause problems. Acid rain also contains nitrogen, and this can
have an impact on some ecosystems. For example, nitrogen pollution in our coastal waters is partially
responsible for declining fish and shellfish populations in some areas. In addition to agriculture and
wastewater, much of the nitrogen produced by human activity that reaches coastal waters comes from
the atmosphere.
Effects of Acid Rain on Materials
Not all acidic deposition is wet. Sometimes dust particles can become acidic as well, and this is
called dry deposition. When acid rain and dry acidic particles fall to earth, the nitric and sulfuric acid that
make the particles acidic can land on statues, buildings, and other manmade structures, and damage
their surfaces. The acidic particles corrode metal and cause paint and stone to deteriorate more quickly.
They also dirty the surfaces of buildings and other structures such as monuments.
The consequences of this damage can be costly:

 damaged materials that need to be repaired or replaced,

 increased maintenance costs, and
 loss of detail on stone and metal statues, monuments and tombstones.
Other Effects of SO2 and NOX
Visibility
In the atmosphere, SO2 and NOX gases are transformed into sulfate and nitrate particles, and the
NOX can react with other pollutants to form ozone. These particles make the air hazy and difficult to see
through. This affects our enjoyment of national parks that we visit for the scenic view such as
Shenandoah and the Great Smoky Mountains.

Human Health
Walking in acid rain, or even swimming in an acid lake, is no more dangerous to humans than walking or
swimming in clean water. However, the pollutants that cause acid rain, and their particulates — SO2 and
NOX, sulfate and nitrate particles—do damage human health.
SO2 and NOX react in the atmosphere to form fine sulfate and nitrate particles that people can inhale into
their lungs. Many scientific studies have shown a relationship between these particles and heart and lung
disorders, such as asthma and bronchitis.

The Advantages of Acid Rain

Acid rain comes in the form of rain, fog, smog and dry depositions, and it harms forests, kills fish and erodes rocks
and buildings. It is caused by excessive emissions of sulfur dioxide and nitrogen oxide compounds from industrial
and natural sources. About two-thirds of sulfur dioxide and one-quarter of nitrogen oxides come from fossil-fuel-
burning power plants. Some environmental studies indicate that the effects of acid rain are complex and include
positive effects on global warming and improvement of forests.
Global Warming
Methane and carbon dioxide are major greenhouse gases that cause global warming. Methane, compared to carbon
dioxide, is more potent. When compared by weight, methane has 20 times more of an impact on climate change than
carbon dioxide does over a 100-year period, according to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. Methane is
emitted from agricultural and industrial processes, but the largest source of methane entering the atmosphere is
wetlands.
Suppressing Methane Production
About 22 percent of the human-enhanced greenhouse gas effect is due to methane. Microbes feeding on hydrogen-
and acetate-containing vegetation in wetlands are natural contributors to total atmospheric methane. In a study of
wetlands in Europe and North America, researchers at the Open University, U.K., found that sulfur compounds
deposited by acid rain inhibited methane production by wetlands. The researchers found that methane production
was significantly suppressed because sulfur-eating bacteria in wetland areas out-competed methane-emitting
microbes. Sulfur compound deposition from acid rain can reduce methane production by up to 30 percent. In another
study, the effects of acid rain on rice paddies were mimicked by adding small amounts of sulfate to the soil. Up to
24 percent of the methane was prevented from entering the atmosphere.
Forests
A 20-year-long study by scientists at Michigan Technological University School on the hardwood forests of
Michigan found that acid rain, together with modest increases in temperature, makes forests more productive.
Researchers measured nitrogen deposition by acid rain and found that trees store more carbon when the soil contains
more nitrogen compounds, as long as there is enough moisture. Therefore, the increased growth rate and greater
ability of trees to store carbon dioxide may offset some of the negative effects of acid rain on forests, such as
damage to tree foliage.
Complex Effects of Acid Rain
Acid rain clearly has negative effects on the environment, but the beneficial effects of acid rain must enter into
future predictions of its role in environmental damage and global warming. A computer model, created at NASA's
Goddard Space Flight Center, predicts that the sulfur dioxide in acid rain will continue to suppress methane
production by wetlands well into 2030. Although nitrogen oxide deposition by acid rain may have positive effects
on forest trees, highly polluted acid rain damages trees and harms some animal species.
After more than 20 years of research in the northern hardwood forests of Michigan, scientists at Michigan
Technological University's School of Forest Resources and Environmental Science have reached a
surprising conclusion: Moderate increases in temperature and nitrogen from atmospheric pollution
actually improve forest productivity.

Andrew Burton, an associate professor at Michigan Tech and head of the National Institute for Climatic
Change Research's Midwestern Regional Center, is part of a team of researchers that has been
monitoring and measuring the temperature, moisture levels and nitrogen deposited by acid rain or varying
levels of experimental nitrogen at four forest sites ranging from northwestern to southern Michigan since
1987. He's found that the trees grow faster at higher temperatures and store more carbon at greater
concentrations of nitrogen, a chemical constituent of acid rain, providing there is sufficient moisture.
"It may well be that increasing temperature and nitrogen deposition are good things, up to a point," Burton
said.
The rise in temperature is extending the growing season, he explained. So far, Burton and colleagues
have measured 10 to 11-day longer growing seasons. “Our growing season isn't that long in the first
place,” he pointed out, “so 10 or 11 days is significant.”
A longer growing season could benefit the timber industry, enabling them to harvest more wood. Now that
woody biomass is being investigated as an alternative energy source by Michigan Tech and others,
increased forest productivity could become a critical factor.
The research, which started out as an acid rain study in 1987, has grown into one of the longest
continuous research studies supported by the National Science Foundation. A new five-year grant of
$151,628 will fund the research through 2012.
“It is really unusual to receive NSF funding for nearly 20 years,” Burton remarked.
The latest grant will fund ongoing measurements tree growth and the the build-up of organic matter in the
soil at the four sites: near Twin Lakes in the northwestern Upper Peninsula of Michigan, at Pellston, near
Petoskey, Mich., at Mesick, near Traverse City, and north of Grand Rapids near the Silver Lake Sand
Dunes in southern Michigan.
Burton and his fellow researchers, Don Zak at the University of Michigan and Kurt Pregitzer at the
University of Nevada-Reno, want to discover if the increased annual growth of the forests is offset by an
increase in tree mortality. They also will examine whether the woody debris on the forest floor will
decompose more slowly as nitrogen levels are increased, further increasing the ecosystem’s ability to
store carbon.
Burton calls the new work “a window into the future,” an opportunity to see if there is a tipping point
beyond which increased nitrogen harms rather than helps the forests.