Two indices are presented for assessing the expected responsiveness of lakes to changes in external acid inputs. The first is the ratio of the sum of acidic anion to sum of base cation equivalents (CA/CB), which is a familiar index of lake response to past inputs; the second quantity is buffer intensity (β = −dCA/dpH), which serves as an index of lakepH sensitivity to changes in current inputs. Because the indices account for both capacity and intensity ofpH buffering, the approach provides greater information on lake responsiveness to acidification than the more customary value, acid neutralizing capacity. The approach is applied to water quality data from the Environmental Protection Agency's Eastern Lake Survey and preliminary paleolimnological data from the PIRLA project (paleolimnological investigation of recent lake acidification). These applications suggest that the approach may yield a useful tool with which to evaluate existing data from sites considered for monitoring the effects of changing acid inputs on lake syste
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