Changes in soil acidity from 1927 to 1982–1984 in a forest area of south‐west Sweden

Reinvestigation of 90 soil profiles sampled for pH measurements in 1927 revealed a general decrease in pH with 0.3–0.9 units (measured electrometrically on field‐moist samples in water with the same ratio soil/water on both occasions). All soil horizons (A0, A2, B and the subsoil, C, at 70 cm depth) had become more acid beneath all types of canopy (beech, oak, spruce planted during different periods), but the spruce stands were on average more acid than the hardwoods. In the upper soil horizons (A0 and A2), old spruce stands were more acid than the young ones at both samplings, but this effect was small in the B horizon and absent in the C horizon. While the tree species effect and age effect in the spruce stands may be called biological acidification, the acidification of deeper horizons, now often below pH 4.5 and in the aluminium buffer range, seems difficult to explain without assuming an influence of acid deposition.