Atmospheric deposition and canopy interactions in urban Scots pine forest

Abstract

The investigations of atmospheric deposition were carried out in 2002 in urban Scots pine (Pinus sylvestris L.) stand in second biggest Lithuanian city –Kaunas. The main aim of this study was to investigate atmospheric deposition and Scots pine canopy interactions at urban site and get more insight in dependency of precipitation chemistry on canopy closure. It was established that throughfall enrichment by anions was caused mainly by wash-off of dry deposited material, although there was a slight canopy exchange of chloride. By contrast, cations, and especially potassium enrichment came mainly from canopy leaching (p<0.05). Concentration of investigated ions in throughfall demonstrated a linear relationship with canopy closure. Twofold increase of canopy closure (40-80 %) led to an increase of Cl- ions concentration in throughfall by a factor 3 and the concentrations of SO42-, NO3- increased more than twice. Potassium concentration in throughfall grew by a factor 2.4 along with twofold increase of canopy closure.