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Atmospheric Deposition

Atmospheric Deposition

Rain in the desertThe atmospheric deposition monitoring program is designed to explore patterns of material deposition across the greater Phoenix metropolitan area and surrounding Sonoran desert. Wet and dry deposition are collected separately using wet-dry deposition collectors from AeroChem Metrics (ACM), Bushnell, FL. These collectors have two side-by-side polyethylene buckets, one each to collect wet and dry deposition. A rain sensor triggers a splash guard such that one bucket is exposed only to dry conditions and one bucket is exposed only during precipitation-producing storms. The dry sample bucket is collected approximately monthly while the wet sample bucket is collected typically within 24 hours of a precipitation-producing storm. The sampling locations spanned a transect from outlying areas to the west and east of the metropolitan area and through the urban core. Monitoring at most sampling locations ran from 1999 through the mid-2000s when sampling was discontinued at several sites. Sampling continued at the Lost Dutchman State Park, also a Desert Fertilization experiment site with a focus on atmospheric deposition, through spring 2016, and continues at a location on the Arizona State University Tempe campus that was added to the program in 2009.

Datasets

Publications

Zhang, C., J. Wu, N. B. Grimm, M. R. McHale and A. Buyantuyev. 2013. A hierarchical patch mosaic ecosystem model for urban landscapes: Model development and evaluation. Ecological Modelling 250:81-100. DOI: 10.1016/j.ecolmodel.2012.09.020. (link )

Lohse, K. A., D. Hope, R. A. Sponseller, J. O. Allen and N. B. Grimm. 2008. Atmospheric deposition of carbon and nutrients across an arid metropolitan area. Science of the Total Environment 402(1):95-105. DOI: 10.1016/j.scitotenv.2008.04.044. (link )

Boreson, J., A. M. Dillner and J. Peccia. 2004. Correlating bioaerosol load with PM2.5 and PM10cf concentrations: A comparison between natural desert and urban fringe aerosols. Atmospheric Environment 38(35):6029-6041. DOI: 10.1016/j.atmosenv.2004.06.040. (link )

Baker, L. A., D. Hope, Y. Xu, J. W. Edmonds and L. Lauver. 2001. Nitrogen balance for the Central Arizona - Phoenix ecosystem. Ecosystems 4(6):582-602. DOI: 10.1007/s10021-001-0031-2. (link )

Protocols