1. Acid Rain
By: Habiba Sallam

2. What is acid rain?
Acid rain is a type of acid deposition which can appear in many formations, for example, wet deposition is rain, sleet, snow or fog than has turned acidic. Dry deposition is another kind of acid deposition and it when gases and dust particles become more acidic than usual. Wet and dry deposition can both be carried by the wind. Sometimes for very long distances. And deposition in both forms falls on buildings, cars, and trees and can make water bodies acidic too. Dry deposition can be inhaled by humans and that can cause health issues.

3. What causes acid rain?
Acid rain is caused by pollution from factories, cars etc. which produce gases such as sulphur dioxide, nitrogen oxide and carbon monoxide. These gases combine with water vapor in the atmosphere and produces acids that falls as rain.

4. What are the affects of acid rain on water bodies and aquatic ecosystems?
The environmental effects of acid rain are mostly seen in aquatic environments such as streams, lakes and marches. Acid rain ends up in those water bodies after falling on forests, fields, buildings and roads. Though sometimes it falls directly in such habitats.
Acid rain has many effects that harm or kill individual fish, reduce fish populations, completely extinguish fish species form water bodies and decrease the variety of life in that particular habitat. As acid rain flows through soils in a watershed, aluminum is released into the lakes and streams situated in that watershed from the soil. As pH in a water body decreases, aluminum levels increase. Low pH and high aluminum levels are instantly toxic to fish .

5. What are the affects of acid rain on soil and plant life?
Acid rain is most likely to weaken the trees by destroying their leaves, to limit the nutrients obtainable to them or revealing them to toxic materials slowly released from the soil, instead of killing them directly. Acid rain harms other plants, the same way it harms trees. Although food crops are not normally severely affected because the farmers constantly add fertilizer to the land to replace the nutrients that have been washed away by the acid rain.

6. What are the affects of acid rain on buildings?
Acids have a caustic affect on limestone, or marble buildings or sculptures. It is established that any form of sulphur dioxide remarkably increases the rate of corrosion in limestone, sandstone and marble.

7. What are the affects of acid rain on human beings?
Humans can’t tell the difference between clean rain and acid rain, and that is because acid rain looks, feels and tastes just like clean rain. Walking in acid rain or even swimming in acid lakes, isn’t more harmful that walking or swimming in clean rain. Acid rain does not harm humans directly. However, the pollutants that cause acid rain – sulphur dioxide (SO2) and nitrogen oxide (Nox) cause damage to human health. These gases, react in the atmosphere to form sulphate and nitrate that can be transported by winds through long distances. And it is inhaled deep into the people’s lungs.

8. Bibliography
tml
warming/acid-rain-overview/

9. Bibliography - Images
sculpture.gif
ds1.JPG
content/uploads/2009/03/acid_rain.gif