[Mapping sensitivity of surface waters to acidification in China]

Acidification of surface waters can be decided by some environmental factors, such as soil's buffering capacity, neutralization capacity of bedrock to acid deposition and types of land use, among which the most important factor is the soil's resistance to acidification. Therefore, information about soils, geology and land use can be used to predict the regional occurrence of acidification surface waters under different flows. In this paper, information and data about Chinese soils, geology and land use types were collected to determine and to map the sensitivity of surface waters to acidification. Results showed that in China, most surface waters were not sensitive to acidification. The few most sensitive surface waters were located in the north part of Northeastern China, accounting for 2.67% of all the country land. It was the combined results of strongly acidified ortho podzolic soil, acidified bedrock and coniferous forest. Surface waters which were not very sensitive to acidification were distributed both in the region of dark brown forest soil in Northeastern China and in the ferralsol and yellow-brown earth area in Southern China, occupying 15.2% of all the country land. The other surface waters which distributed on 82.11% of all the country land were not sensitive to acidification at all. Most in the Northern China because of the high resistance of soils to acidification and the others were in the Southern China where calcareous soils and agricultural lands were widely distributed. Since soils were quite resistant to acid, acidification of surface waters of large area will not likely occur in the southern region of China suffering from heavy acid deposition in the near future. Nevertheless, the acid deposition in Northern China should be controlled as soon as possible in case that acidified surface waters will be found there.