Enhanced depositions of protons causes damages on forest and aquatic ecosystems, and enhanced deposition of nitrogen may cause nutrient imbalances in forests and further changes within the vegetation community. The main responsible emission sources are power plants, heating combustion, industrial processes, car traffic, and agricultural activities. Emission reduction measures will only be accepted by society if connections between impacts and effects can be clarified as far as possible. Thus interactions between impacts and receptors are spatial processes and it is necessary to develop appropriate models to get information about the spatial distribution of risk.
In this paper an approach for the spatial estimation of Critical Loads in complex terrain with mosaics of small, different ecosystems, applied to the Tyrolean Limestone Alps, is presented. A Steady State Mass Balance Model is used to calculate Critical Loads for sample sites and response models based on nonlinear regression functions are used to predict spatial risk distribution. |
