Assessment of wet sulphur deposition over the former USSR

The data obtained by different national and international networks of precipitation chemistry monitoring the territory of the former Soviet Union (FSU) have been generalized. Analyses of long-term trends of sulphur concentrations in precipitation for a 30-year period showed that the changes did not correlate with the dynamics of anthropogenic sulphur emissions into the atmosphere both over the FSU territory and Europe as a whole. Sulphur concentrations in precipitation reveal an obvious seasonal dependence with the spring maximum while deposition intensity has its maximum during summer time. All the FSU territory has been divided into 20 regions, and the mean values of sulphur concentration in precipitation and wet deposition have been estimated for each of them. The highest values were characteristic of the south-western part of the country and lowest ones of the remote areas of NorthEast. In the 80s, about 6.0 Tg of sulphur were annually wet deposited over the European territory of the FSU, about 3.0 Tg over the territory of Kazahstan and Central Asia, about 5.7 Tg in Siberia and the Russian Far East. The total wet sulphur deposition made up 60–90% of the anthropogenic sulphur emissions into the FSU atmosphere.