Discerning the roles of ocean acidification, eutrophication, and river alkalization in driving long-term pH trends in the Chesapeake Bay

Abstract

Rising anthropogenic CO2 in the atmosphere and oceanic uptake of CO2 have led to a gradual decrease in seawater pH and ocean acidification, but pH changes in estuaries and coastal systems are more complicated due to a multitude of global and regional environmental drivers. Increasing global fertilizer use due to agricultural production has led to a doubling of riverine nutrient loading since the 1950s, leading to widespread eutrophication in estuarine and coastal waters. Excessive nutrient loading stimulates primary production in the surface euphotic layer, which consumes CO2 and elevates pH, but unassimilated organic matter sinks and decomposes in bottom waters, producing CO2 and reducing pH. In the meantime, human-accelerated chemical weathering, such as acid rain and mining, has resulted in rising alkalinity in many rivers and basification in estuarine and coastal waters. To discern how these environmental drivers influence long-term pH trends in coastal waters, a coupled hydrodynamic-biogeochemical-carbonate chemistry model was used to conduct hindcast simulations of the Chesapeake Bay between 1951 and 2010. The model reproduced the observed chlorophyll increase and hypoxia expansion due to the increased nutrient loading. In contrast, low-pH bottom waters and acidic volume shrank from 1950 to 1980. GAM analysis of long-term pH trends in different regions of Chesapeake Bay revealed increasing pH in the upper Bay driven by the river alkalinization, a peak pH in the mid-Bay in the 1980s coincident with the peak nutrient loading and decreasing pH in the lower Bay driven by ocean acidification. Four scenario runs were performed to assess the individual effects of rising pCO2, river alkalinization, riverine nutrient loading, and climate change (warming and sea-level rise) on long-term pH changes in the Chesapeake Bay. The model results suggested that river alkalinization was more important than ocean acidification in driving the long-term pH changes in the estuary.