Lake sediment-based reconstructions of variations in levels of deposition of atmospheric pollutants from the industrial-scale combustion of fossil fuels and ecosystem response at three remote Irish lake sites

Abstract

Humans have greatly manipulated the environment over the last 200 years through processes of industrialisation, urbanisation and agricultural intensification. As a result, levels of anthropogenic air pollution have increased rapidly, and have been shown to have detrimental impacts on freshwater ecosystem health. Both the direct (e.g. by altering ecosystem structure) and indirect effects (e.g. pre-disposing ecosystem to further stressors such as climate change) of increased levels of emission, atmospheric concentration and deposition of atmospheric pollutants on freshwater ecosystems have long been recognised. However, little is known about long-term variations in levels of atmospheric contamination, and, as a result, it is difficult to determine the relative sensitivities of differing ecosystems to variations in levels of deposition of atmospheric pollutants.