RENO, Nev. —Thinning of forests, generally undertaken to reduce dangers from wildfire and restore the forest to a more natural state, also can create more mountain runoff to mitigate drought effects in the central Sierra Nevada region that relies on snowpack.
In fact, researchers from the College of Agriculture, Biotechnology & Natural Resources at the University of Nevada, Reno found that the quantity of additional water produced by thinned forests can be so significant that it might provide further incentive for forest managers to undertake prescribed burning or tree-removal using heavy equipment and hand crews with chainsaws.
Water yields from thinned forests can be increased by 8% to 14% during drought years, found the study undertaken by Adrian Harpold, an associate professor in the Department of Natural Resources & Environmental Science, and Elijah Boardman, a doctoral student in the Graduate Program of Hydrologic Sciences. Harpold, who also conducts research as part of the College’s Experiment Station, is principal investigator of the study funded by the U.S. Forest Service and recently published in Water Resources Research.
That increased water would be particularly valuable, especially in drought years, to farmers and cities in central California and northern Nevada who rely on Sierra snowpack for much of their water supply. The new research doesn’t delve into financial considerations but focuses exclusively on the amounts of water generated by thinned forests…