Holocene environmental changes in an arctic lake (Ny- Ålesund, Svalbard)

The NSINK Initial Stage Network Training networks targets one of the most vital, interdisciplinary problems facing future Arctic environmental management: namely the enrichment of Arctic terrestrial and aquatic ecosystems by reactive atmospheric nitrogen from low latitude emission centres. This problem will greatly exacerbate ecosystem response to climate change, and urgently requires holistic, sources to sinks type studies of nitrogen dynamics. Thus training in atmospheric sciences, snow physics, hydrolo gy, biogeochemistry and aquatic/terrestrial ecology is necessary, bringing UK, Norwegian, Swedish, Austrian and German expertise into a single interdisciplinary project at Ny-Ålesund, the site of Europe?s most significant high Arctic environmental infrast ructure. Further, in order to constrain recent change in the nitrogen accumulation in this environment, training in the interpretation of ice core and lake sediment archives will be done. The"Holocene environmental changes in an arctic lake" is one of th e sub-projects to NSINK. This sub- project will content work on the palaeolimnology of local lakes (Traudalen) in the Ny-Ålesund area (Svalbard) and a lake (Kongressvatn) on the west-coast of Svalbard. This work will constrain the history and drivers of p hysico-chemical conditions throughout the late Holocene by examining lake sediments. The combination with biological palaeo-indicators (diatoms) will allow the reconstruction of anthropogenic impacts and climate effects on the terrestrial environment, as well as the lake ecosystem itself. Diatoms will be used to infer the history of pH and thus indirectly reflect the impact of acidic N deposition. Interaction with other project fellows will include comparison of the nitrogen archive of lake sediment to th e ice core archive and to recent N cycling in this high arctic environment.