Svante Odén was a Swedish soil scientist at the Agricultural College of Uppsala, Sweden who was among the first to recognize that atmospheric emissions of sulfur compounds were causing acid rain. Odén published a study in 1968 showing that precipitation in Sweden had become eight times more acidic during the period 1962 to 1966, causing lakes to acidify and damaging fish populations. Odén concluded that the sulfur compounds causing acidification could be dispersed hundreds of kilometers from their sources, causing damage to ecosystems far from regions of heavy sulfur emissions.

Acid rain was known to European scientists in the seventeenth century, named by Robert Angus Smith in 1872, and accurately described by Eville Gorham in the 1950s, but only became a popular environmental concern after the Swedish National Science Research Council published Odén's findings in 1968 as "The Acidification of Air and Precipitation and its Consequences in the Natural Environment" in Ecology Community Bulletin No. 1.

In 1961, Odén began collecting field data about the relationship between bodies of fresh water and surrounding soils. This research, following that of two other Swedes, Carl Gustav Arvid Rossby and Erik Eriksson at the Meteorology Institute of Stockholm University, led him toward analyzing the chemistry of rain and eventually to the retroactive monitoring of air pollutants emitted from several parts of Europe. He soon correlated these findings with meteorological evidence and concluded that industrial air pollution, especially sulfur dioxide, from Britain and Germany adversely affected the rain that fell in Sweden.

Comparing his data with that of fisheries inspector Ulf Lunden, Odén became alarmed that the unchecked continuation of this trend could destroy Swedish fish populations and reduce Swedish crop yields. Accordingly, he took the unusual step of publishing his results, not first in a scientific journal, but in a newspaper, the October 24, 1967, issue of Dagens Nyheter. The Swedish government and people immediately mobilized behind Odén, and in 1972 the United Nations Conference on the Human Environment, held in Stockholm, reported extensive fish kills, forest and farm damage, and human health problems in Sweden, all related to acid rain.

Sweden was the first country where the study of acid rain was taken seriously. Since much of the Swedish economy centers around fish—and since acid rain can decrease fish populations—Odén's publications in both the scientific and the popular press galvanized public opinion and rallied scientists and politicians to defend and protect Swedish interests. Odén remained a tireless advocate for policy reform regarding acid rain, but sometimes overdramatized the case, for example by claiming that Western Europe was waging "chemical warfare" against Scandinavia. He conducted a lecture tour of the United States in 1971 and spoke at the Nineteenth International Limnological Congress in Winnipeg, Manitoba, in 1974. These trips inspired many American and Canadian scientists to begin studying acid rain.

Sources

• Cleveland, Cutler (Lead Author); Peter Saundry (Topic Editor). 2006. "Odén, Svante." In: Encyclopedia of Earth. Eds. Cutler J. Cleveland (Washington, D.C.: Environmental Information Coalition, National Council for Science and the Environment). [Published in the Encyclopedia of Earth October 12, 2006; Retrieved September 23, 2009]. 
• "Odén, Svante N. F.(1924-1986)." World of Earth Science. Ed. K. Lee Lerner and Brenda Wilmoth Lerner. Gale Cengage, 2003. eNotes.com. 2006. 23 Sep, 2009.