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Acid rain or acid deposition is a broad term that includes any type of precipitation with acidic components, such as sulfuric or nitric acid, that fall from the atmosphere in wet or dry form. This can include rain, snow, fog, hail or even acidic dust.

What Effect Does Acid Rain Have On The Environment

This image illustrates the pathway of acid rain in our environment: (1) SO2 and NOx emissions are released into the air, where (2) pollutants are converted into acid particles that can travel long distances. (3) These acid particles then fall to the ground as wet and dry deposition (dust, rain, snow, etc.) and (4) can cause adverse effects on soils, forests, streams, and lakes.

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React with water, oxygen and other chemicals to form sulfuric and nitric acid. They then mix with water and other materials before falling to the ground.

Acid rain comes from natural sources such as volcanoes, most of which comes from burning fossil fuels. Main sources of SO

Long distances and across borders, making acid rain a problem for everyone, not just those who live near these sources.

. Sulfuric and nitric acids formed in the atmosphere fall to the ground mixed with rain, snow, fog or hail.

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Acidic particles and gases can also settle from the atmosphere without moisture as a dry layer. Acidic particles and gases can settle on surfaces (water bodies, vegetation, buildings) quickly or react during atmospheric transport to form larger particles that can be harmful to human health. When the next rain washes away the accumulated acids from the surface, this acidic water flows over and through the land and can harm plants and wildlife such as insects and fish.

The amount of atmospheric acidity that falls to the ground through dry precipitation depends on the amount of rain that the area receives. For example, desert areas have a higher ratio of dry to wet precipitation than an area that receives several inches of rain annually.

Acidity and alkalinity are measured on the pH scale, where 7.0 is neutral. The lower the pH of a substance (below 7), the more acidic it is; the higher the pH of a substance (above 7), the more basic it is. The pH of normal rain is about 5.6; it is slightly acidic because carbon dioxide (CO

) dissolves in it, forming weak carbonic acid. The pH of acid rain is usually between 4.2 and 4.4.

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Policymakers, scientists, ecologists, and modelers rely on the National Atmospheric Deposition Program’s (NADP) National Trends Network (NTN) for wet deposition measurements. NADP/NTN collects acid rain at more than 250 monitoring sites throughout the United States, Canada, Alaska, Hawaii, and the US Virgin Islands. Unlike wet deposition, dry deposition is difficult and expensive to measure. Estimates of dry deposition for nitrogen and sulfur pollutants are provided by the Clean Air Status and Trends Network (CASTNET). Air concentrations are measured with CASTNET at more than 90 locations.

When acid deposition washes into lakes and streams, it can make some people acidic. The Long-Term Monitoring (LTM) network measures and monitors surface water chemistry at more than 280 sites to provide valuable information about the health of aquatic ecosystems and how water bodies respond to changes in acid-causing emissions and acid deposition. Acid rain, also called acid rain or acid deposition, precipitation with a pH of about 5.2 or less is caused primarily by emissions of sulfur dioxide (SO)

) from human activity, mainly from the burning of fossil fuels. In acid-sensitive landscapes, acid deposition can lower the pH of surface waters and reduce biodiversity. It weakens trees and increases their susceptibility to damage from other stressors such as drought, extreme cold and pests. In acid-prone areas, acid rain also depletes important plant nutrients and buffers from the soil, such as calcium and magnesium, and can release aluminum bound to soil particles and rock in its toxic dissolved form. Acid rain promotes corrosion of surfaces exposed to air pollution and is responsible for the decay of limestone and marble buildings and monuments.

Scottish chemist Robert Angus Smith first used it in 1852 when studying the chemistry of rainwater near industrial cities in England and Scotland. The phenomenon became an important part of his book

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(1872). However, it was not until the late 1960s and early 1970s that acid rain was recognized as a regional environmental problem affecting large areas in western Europe and eastern North America. Acid rain also occurs in Asia and parts of Africa, South America and Australia. As a global environmental problem, it is often overshadowed by climate change. Although the problem of acid rain has been significantly reduced in some areas, it remains an important environmental problem worldwide in and downstream of large industrial and industrial agricultural regions.

, which refers to the many ways in which acidity can move from the atmosphere to the Earth’s surface. Acid precipitation includes acid rain and other wet forms of acid precipitation – such as snow, sleet, hail and fog (or cloud water). Acid deposition also includes dry deposition of acidic particles and gases, which can affect landscapes in dry times. Thus, acid deposition can affect landscapes and the organisms in them even when there is no rain.

) in the solution. The pH scale measures whether the solution is acidic or basic. Substances are considered acidic if the pH is less than 7, and each unit with a pH less than 7 is 10 times more acidic or has 10 times more H

, than the unit above it. For example, rainwater with a pH of 5.0 has 10 microequivalents of H

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) from the atmosphere – the process that produces carbonic acid – and organic acids that arise from biological activity. In addition, volcanic activity can produce sulfuric acid (H

) and hydrochloric acid (HCl) depending on emissions associated with certain volcanoes. Other natural sources of acidification are the production of nitrogen oxides from the conversion of atmospheric molecular nitrogen (N).

) on the effect of lightning and the change of organic nitrogen as a result of forest fires. However, each source of natural acidification has a small geographic extent, and in most cases only lowers the pH of rain to about 5.2 at most.

Human activities, especially the burning of fossil fuels (coal, oil, natural gas) and smelting of metals, are the most important causes of acid deposition. In the United States, electric utilities produce almost 70 percent of SO

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These reactions in the aqueous phase (for example in cloud water) form wet precipitation products. In the gas phase, they can produce an acidic dry deposit. Acid formation can also occur in atmospheric particles.

Due to emissions, acid deposition occurs in areas downwind of emission sources, often hundreds or thousands of kilometers away. In such areas, the pH of rain can average 4.0-4.5 per year, and the pH of individual rains can sometimes fall below 3.0. In addition, cloud water and fog in polluted areas can be many times more acidic than rain in the same area.

Many air pollution and atmospheric deposition problems are intertwined, and these problems often stem from the same cause, namely the burning of fossil fuels. In addition to acid deposition, NO

Emissions, along with hydrocarbon emissions, are key factors in the formation of ground-level ozone (photochemical smog), one of the most common forms of air pollution. SO

Breakdown: What Is Acid Rain & Why Is It Harmful?

Emissions can form fine particles that are harmful to the human respiratory system. Coal burning is the leading source of atmospheric mercury, which also enters ecosystems as wet and dry deposition. (Many other heavy metals, such as lead and cadmium, as well as various particulates are also products of uncontrolled combustion of fossil fuels.) Acid deposition of nitrogen from NO

Emissions cause more environmental problems. For example, many lake, estuary and coastal marine systems receive too much nitrogen from atmospheric deposition and land runoff. This eutrophication (or over-enrichment) causes an overgrowth of plants and algae. As these organisms die and decompose, they deplete the supply of dissolved oxygen, which is essential for most aquatic life in water bodies. Eutrophication is considered a major environmental problem in lake, coastal sea and estuarine ecosystems worldwide (

The regional effects of acid deposition were first observed in parts of Western Europe and eastern North America in the late 1960s and early 1970s, when changes in river and lake chemistry, often in remote areas, were linked to declining aquatic health. such as live fish, crab and shellfish populations. Increasing acidic precipitation in sensitive areas made tens of thousands of lakes and streams in Europe and North America much more acidic than in previous decades. Acid sensitive areas are areas that are prone to acidification because the soil in the area has low buffering capacity or low acid neutralizing capacity (ANC). In addition, acidification can release aluminum bound to the soil, which in its dissolved form can be toxic to both plants and animals. High concentrations of dissolved aluminum released from the soil often find their way into streams and lakes. As the acidity of the water environment increases, aluminum can damage the gills of fish and thus impair breathing. In the Adirondack Mountain region of New York state, studies have shown that the amount

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