Evaluation of some systems for classifying soil sensitivity to acid deposition in the South African highveld

Abstract. The Skokloster and Stockholm Environmental Institute (SEI) approaches were applied to the assessment of 145 soils of the South African highveld region in terms of sensitivity to acid deposition. The critical load class calculated by variants of these methods was compared with the acid neutralizing capacity (ANC) determined by pH measurement of soil suspended in a dilute acetate buffer solution. This rapid index of ANC correlates well both with ANC determined by an established but more laborious method which involves titration and equilibration of soil with HCl, and with a number of soil properties related to base status. The correlation between Skokloster or SEI critical load classes and ANC was weak. It was concluded that ANC determination would be a preferable basis for classifying these soils in terms of their sensitivity to acid deposition, since the method is direct and integrates the contribution of various soil properties to acid sensitivity instead of requiring the relative contribution to be calculated according to somewhat arbitrary weightings given to broadly defined classes of soil properties.