A critical evaluation of the use of the PROFILE model in calculating mineral weathering rates

The PROFILE model is used extensively in the European Critical Loads programme as an aid to international negotiations on SO2 emission abatement. PROFILE calculates the rates of cation release by mineral weathering and it then uses these data to calculate soil solution and runoff chemistry. No independent assessment of the underlying assumptions and data in the model has been published and this paper reports such an assessment. The rate equations, which are the key to the PROFILE model require rate coefficients and constants. These have been derived from the literature but more work is required to produce a consistent set of constants. Manipulation of these rates to take into account the exposed reactive surface area of the minerals is fraught with problems. Calculation of exposed mineral surface area from soil textural data results in under-estimates and the requirement to determine the surface area fraction of the different minerals in the soil to be known is extremely difficult if not impossible. Further uncertainty is introduced by adjustment of the rates to take into account temperature differences and by the use of a default mineralogy which is compositionally unrealistic. Despite its flaws PROFILE usually predicts similar weathering rates to other methods of calculation. It is argued that the unrealistic constraints imposed by the use of the surface area equation may be responsible for limiting calculated weathering rate to a fixed range which coincides with characteristically determined values for weathering rates.