Direct/Delayed Response Project: Quality-assurance report for physical and chemical analyses of soils from the Southern Blue Ridge Province of the United States

The Direct/Delayed Response Project is designed to address the concern over potential acidification of surface waters by atmospheric sulfur deposition within the United States. The Southern Blue Ridge Province Soil Survey was conducted during the summer of 1986 as a synoptic physical and chemical survey to characterize watersheds located in a region of the United States believed to be susceptible to the effects of acidic deposition. The document addresses the quality assurance program and its implementation in the assessment of the verified analytical data base for the Southern Blue Ridge Province Soil Survey. Data quality is assessed by describing the detectability, precision, accuracy (interlaboratory differences), representativeness, completeness, and comparability of the data for the quality assurance samples used throughout the soil survey. The fifty-one parameters in the data base are segregated into nine groups for ease in discussion.