Abstract

Atmospheric deposition is a marginally understood source of nutrient loadings to waterbodies. Atmospheric deposition occurs via wet (rain, snow) and dry (gaseous and particulate transport) pathways. Bulk atmospheric deposition is defined as the total deposition from both wet and dry pathways. Utah Lake is a shallow eutrophic freshwater lake located in central Utah, USA. Recent studies have shown atmospheric deposition to be a significant contributor to the nutrient budget of Utah Lake. This study presents the analysis using three different methods of six years' worth of wet atmospheric deposition samples from nine locations around the lake, though these samples do include some contribution from dry deposition. We present and compare nutrient loads and nutrient loading rates for total phosphorus, total in-organic nitrogen, and ortho-phosphorus. We conclude that wet atmospheric deposition contributed between 309 to 529 tons of total phosphorus, 1,166 to 2,078 tons of total nitrogen, and 106 to 201 tons of ortho-phosphorus to the lake during the study period. We extracted loading rates for the calendar year (in tons per year) and winter/summer month (in tons per month) from the data from each of the three methods of analysis. We show that wet atmospheric deposition is a significant pathway in which nutrients are transported to Utah Lake.

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