Relationship Between Soil pH and Dissolved Oxygen (DO) Concentration in Salish Creek and Canyon Creek

Abstract

Soil pH and dissolved oxygen (DO) concentration are two important abiotic factors for the survival of salmon. We were interested in determining whether a linear relationship existed between soil pH and DO concentration in the upper portions of Vancouver’s Salish Creek and Canyon Creek. Soil pH and DO concentration were measured with pH meters and oxygen concentration meters. It was found that the aggregated pH measurements from both creeks have a mean of 6.0 and the DO measurements have a mean of 8.5 mg/L. A linear regression model was performed to determine if the two variables were significantly correlated in creek water. It was found that the p-value of the slope of the fitted line being equal to 0 was 0.57, which was not significant at the significance level of 0.05 used for this study. Therefore, we failed to reject the null hypothesis and concluded that there was no significant relationship between soil pH and DO concentration based on our study.