Human-planted alder trees as a protection against debris flows (a dendrochronological study from the Moxi Basin, Southwestern China)

Malik, Ireneusz; Tie, Yongbo; Owczarek, Piotr; Wistuba, Małgorzata; Pilorz, Wojciech; Woskowicz‐Ślęzak, Beata

doi:10.2478/s13386-013-0113-x

Cited by 8 publications

(4 citation statements)

References 40 publications

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“…Densifying forests protect downslope communities and infrastructure from debris flows, rockfall and snow avalanches (e.g. Lingua et al, 2020;Malik et al, 2013;Moos et al, 2018Moos et al, , 2019. Efficient debris flow and rockfall protection, for example, by reducing runout length is linked to high stem diameters or stem densities of tree species (Bettella et al, 2018;Guthrie et al, 2010;Michelini et al, 2017).…”

Section: Scenario B: Shifting Biogeomorphic Ecosystem Engineer Specie...mentioning

confidence: 99%

Go or grow? Feedbacks between moving slopes and shifting plants in high mountain environments

Eichel,

Stoffel,

Wipf

2023

Progress in Physical Geography: Earth and Environment

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High mountains are climate change hotspots. Quickly rising temperatures trigger vegetation shifts such as upslope migration, possibly threatening mountain biodiversity. At the same time, mountain slopes are becoming increasingly unstable due to degrading permafrost and changing rain and snowfall regimes, which favour slope movements such as rockfall and debris flows. Slope movements can limit plant colonization, while, at the same time, plant colonization can stabilize moving slopes. Thus, we here propose that response of high mountain environments to climate change depends on a ‘biogeomorphic balance’ between slope movement intensity and the trait-dependent ability of mountain plants to survive and stabilize slopes. We envision three possible scenarios of biogeomorphic balance: (1) Intensifying slope movements limit vegetation shifts and thus amplify instability. (2) Shifting ecosystem engineer species reduce slope movement and facilitate shifts for less movement-adapted species. (3) Trees and tall shrubs shifting on stable slopes limit slope instability but decrease biodiversity. Previous geomorphic, ecological and palaeoecological studies support all three scenarios. Given differences in ecologic and geomorphic response rates to climate change, as well as high environmental heterogeneity and elevational gradients in mountain environments, we posit that future biogeomorphic balances will be variable and heterogeneous in time and space. To further unravel future biogeomorphic balances, we propose three new research directions for joint research of mountain geomorphologists and ecologists, using advancing field measurement, remote sensing and modelling techniques. Recognizing high mountains as ‘biogeomorphic ecosystems’ will help to better safeguard mountain infrastructure, lives and livelihoods of millions of people around the world.

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Section: Scenario B: Shifting Biogeomorphic Ecosystem Engineer Specie...mentioning

confidence: 99%

Go or grow? Feedbacks between moving slopes and shifting plants in high mountain environments

Eichel,

Stoffel,

Wipf

2023

Progress in Physical Geography: Earth and Environment

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“…Forests have a positive protective effect on rockfall [50,53]. The protection potential of forests against rockfalls is related to the size of the falling rocks.…”

Section: Rock Size Influences Forests' Rockfall Protection Effectmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…A portion of the debris generated by a rockfall will be airborne, so taller trees are effective in intercepting small airborne rockfalls, as shown in Figure 9b. Moreover, the larger the DBH of the tree and the deeper the root system, the stronger the tree will be and the more energy it will be able to withstand from falling rocks [50,53]. Smaller-DBH trees may be broken or even uprooted by falling rocks, thus failing to provide effective deceleration and blocking effects on falling rocks.…”

Section: Influencing Factors Of Forest Structure On Mitigating Rockfa...mentioning

confidence: 99%

Assessment and Mechanism Analysis of Forest Protection against Rockfall in a Large Rock Avalanche Area

Song,

Yang,

Liang

et al. 2023

Forests

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Trees in forests can obstruct falling rocks and serve as a natural barrier to reduce the velocity of falling rocks. Recently, there has been growing interest in utilizing forests to safeguard against potential rockfall. Nevertheless, there is a dearth of research regarding the impact of rock size and forest structure on forest preservation against rockfall. This study takes the Jiweishan rock avalanche that occurred in China in June 2009 as an example to discuss the protection mechanism of forests against rockfall in rock avalanche disasters. Three sizes of rockfalls from the Jiweishan rock avalanche were simulated and analyzed with and without forests using Rockyfor3D software. The findings indicate that forests can mitigate the energy impact of falling rocks. Especially in the debris flow area of rock avalanches, the protective effect of trees on small-sized falling rocks is most obvious, reducing the runout distance and damage range of the debris flow. Moreover, the protective effect of forest structures on rockfall risk was explored. It was found that broad-leaved forests had the best protection against falling rocks, followed by coniferous broad-leaved mixed forests, and coniferous forests had the worst protective effect. Furthermore, increasing forest planting density and tree diameter at breast height (DBH) can result in better protection against rockfall. Thus, rational planning of forest species and planting density in areas of rockfall can effectively reduce the threat of rockfall risk. The research ideas in this study can provide a basis for evaluating the mitigation of rockfall hazards by forests and provide a reference for constructing and planning protective forests in rockfall and rock avalanche hazard areas.

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“…Over the past few years, the dendrochronological research has made significant progress in China, such as dendroecological research by Song et al, 2011, Yu et al, 2018; dendrogeomorphological research by Malik et al, 2013Malik et al, , 2017. Besides, because the tree-rings are highresolution climate proxies containing rich climatic information, from which long paleoclimatic records can develop (Shao et al, 2010).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Tree-ring reconstruction of June-July mean temperatures in the northern Daxing’an Mountains, China

Jiang

Zhang

et al. 2020

Geochronometria

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In this study, the mean temperature of June to July was reconstructed for the period of 1880 to 2014 by using the Larix gmelinii tree-ring width data for the Mangui region in the northern Daxing’an Mountains, China. The reconstruction accounts for 43.6% of the variance in the temperature observed from AD 1959–2014. During the last 134 years, there were 17 warm years and 17 cold years, which accounted for 12.7% of the total reconstruction years, respectively. Cold episodes occurred throughout 1887–1898 (average value is 14.2°C), while warm episodes occurred during 1994–2014 (15.9°C). Based on this regional study, the warmer events coincided with dry periods and the colder events were consistent with wet conditions. The spatial correlation analyses between the reconstructed series and gridded temperature data revealed that the regional climatic variations were well captured by this study and the reconstruction represented a regional temperature signal for the northern Daxing’an Mountains. In addition, Multi-taper method spectral analysis revealed the existence of significant periodicities in our reconstruction. Significant spectral peaks were found at 29.7, 10.9, 2.5, and 2.2 years. The significant spatial correlations between our temperature reconstruction and the El Niño–Southern Oscillation (ENSO), Pacific Decadal Oscillation (PDO) and Solar activity suggested that the temperature in the Daxing’an Mountains area indicated both local-regional climate signals and global-scale climate changes.

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Human-planted alder trees as a protection against debris flows (a dendrochronological study from the Moxi Basin, Southwestern China)

Cited by 8 publications

References 40 publications

Go or grow? Feedbacks between moving slopes and shifting plants in high mountain environments

Go or grow? Feedbacks between moving slopes and shifting plants in high mountain environments

Assessment and Mechanism Analysis of Forest Protection against Rockfall in a Large Rock Avalanche Area

Tree-ring reconstruction of June-July mean temperatures in the northern Daxing’an Mountains, China

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