The buffering effects of aquatic sediments against acidic deposition

The cation exchange and the chemical weathering are two important processes for sedi-ments to buffer the acidification of surface water. In this paper, for sediments these two processeshave been studied. The relationship between BFC of sediments and ANC of the surface waters andthe weathering characteristics of sediments were discussed. The buffering effect and mechanism of sedi-ments against acidic deposition have also been studied. The results show that BFC of sediments arepositively correlative to ANC of the surface waters. the chemical weathering rate of sediments can beexpressed as R=k×H+]m.