Potential water yield reduction due to forestation across China

Sun, Ge; Zhou, Guoyi; Zhang, Zhiqiang; Wei, Xiaohua; McNulty, Steven G.; Vose, James M.

doi:10.1016/j.jhydrol.2005.12.013

Cited by 408 publications

(308 citation statements)

References 25 publications

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“…In addition, bark crack and leaf litter can result in the relatively higher soil surface roughness (Xu, 2012), all of which will greatly reduce runoff. Sun et al (2006) shows that forestation practices may reduce water yield up to 50% especially in the temperate zones of northern China such as the Loess Plateau, which is also supported by Feng et al (2012) who find that water yield have decreased at an annual rate of 1-48 mm in 38% part of the Loess Plateau.…”

Section: Runoff Response To Vegetation Changementioning

confidence: 55%

Vegetation changes in recent large-scale ecological restoration projects and subsequent impact on water resources in China's Loess Plateau

Liang

et al. 2016

Science of The Total Environment

248

103

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Section: Runoff Response To Vegetation Changementioning

confidence: 55%

Vegetation changes in recent large-scale ecological restoration projects and subsequent impact on water resources in China's Loess Plateau

Liang

et al. 2016

Science of The Total Environment

248

103

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“…Unfortunately, to date, no unequivocal case of a positive relationship between changes in Q and reforested degraded area has been reported in the tropics (cf . Table 6), although demonstrated decreases in the amounts of headwater-or hillslope stormflow generation after reforesting severely degraded land (Chandler and 1998; Zhou et al, 2002;Zhang et al, 2004;Sun et al, 2006) must be considered large enough to overcome the associated increases in forest water use (Chandler, 2006;cf. Bruijnzeel, 2004;Scott et al, 2005).…”

Section: Impacts Of Land-cover Change On Streamflowsmentioning

confidence: 99%

The impact of forest regeneration on streamflow in 12 mesoscale humid tropical catchments

Beck

Bruijnzeel

Dijk

et al. 2013

Hydrol. Earth Syst. Sci.

106

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Abstract. Although regenerating forests make up an increasingly large portion of humid tropical landscapes, little is known of their water use and effects on streamflow (Q). Since the 1950s the island of Puerto Rico has experienced widespread abandonment of pastures and agricultural lands, followed by forest regeneration. This paper examines the possible impacts of these secondary forests on several Q characteristics for 12 mesoscale catchments (23-346 km 2 ; mean precipitation 1720-3422 mm yr −1 ) with long (33-51 yr) and simultaneous records for Q, precipitation (P ), potential evaporation (PET), and land cover. A simple spatially-lumped, conceptual rainfall-runoff model that uses daily P and PET time series as inputs (HBV-light) was used to simulate Q for each catchment. Annual time series of observed and simulated values of four Q characteristics were calculated. A least-squares trend was fitted through annual time series of the residual difference between observed and simulated time series of each Q characteristic. From this the total cumulative change (Â) was calculated, representing the change in each Q characteristic after controlling for climate variability and water storage carry-over effects between years. Negative values ofÂ were found for most catchments and Q characteristics, suggesting enhanced actual evaporation overall following forest regeneration. However, correlations between changes in urban or forest area and values ofÂ were insignificant (p ≥ 0.389) for all Q characteristics. This suggests there is no convincing evidence that changes in the chosen Q characteristics in these Puerto Rican catchments can be ascribed to changes in urban or forest area. The present results are in line with previous studies of mesoand macro-scale (sub-)tropical catchments, which generally found no significant change in Q that can be attributed to changes in forest cover. Possible explanations for the lack of a clear signal may include errors in the land cover, climate, Q, and/or catchment boundary data; changes in forest area occurring mainly in the less rainy lowlands; and heterogeneity in catchment response. Different results were obtained for different catchments, and using a smaller subset of catchments could have led to very different conclusions. This highlights the importance of including multiple catchments in land-cover impact analysis at the mesoscale.

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“…Also, recovery of natural vegetation and soil conservation practices have shown to be effective in controlling soil erosion (He et al, 2003;Feng et al, 2010) as evidenced by the reduced sediment loading in many large rivers in the region. However, some concerns have been raised with argument that large-scale afforestation in the water-limited arid and semiarid regions may increase the severity of water shortages on the ground that plantation forests consume more water than grassland or degraded lands (Eastham and Rose, 1988;Sun et al, 2006;Zhang et al, 2008a;Wang et al, 2011). McVicar et al (2007) conduct a comprehensive literature review on relations between land use and hydrology for the Loess Plateau region.…”

Section: M Feng Et Al: Regional Effects Of Vegetation Restoratiomentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Few studies have been conducted to examine the relationship between vegetation change and hydrological response at a regional scale for the Loess Plateau. Indeed, small watershed experiment studies worldwide (Zhang et al, 2001;Andreassian, 2004) and continental scale modelling studies suggest the hydrologic influences of vegetation restoration vary across a climatic gradient (Ma et al, 2008) and over the course of plant community establishment (Sun et al, 2006). However, few case studies (Sun et al, 2006(Sun et al, , 2011b are available to extend small-watershed study results to a large basin or a region although land management planning and policy decisions are made at those scales .…”

Section: M Feng Et Al: Regional Effects Of Vegetation Restoratiomentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Thus, there are still uncertainties about the true effects of reforestation on the water yield and more studies are needed. Based on climate and physiographic conditions, a modelling study by Sun et al (2006) proposed differential hydrologic recovery rates for five subregions that have different climate across China, and stressed the importance of timing and extent of reforestation activities on the potential hydrologic impacts. A recent study by Zhou et al (2010) suggested that forest recovery in the humid southeast China in the past 50 yr did not necessarily reduce streamflow, but rather helped redistributing water from the wet season to the dry season and, consequently, elevating water yield in the dry season.…”

Section: Spatial and Temporal Variability Across A Precipitation Gradmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Regional effects of vegetation restoration on water yield across the Loess Plateau, China

Feng

Sun

et al. 2012

Hydrol. Earth Syst. Sci.

194

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Abstract. The general relationships between vegetation and water yield under different climatic regimes are well established at a small watershed scale in the past century. However, applications of these basic theories to evaluate the regional effects of land cover change on water resources remain challenging due to the complex interactions of vegetation and climatic variability and hydrologic processes at the large scale. The objective of this study was to explore ways to examine the spatial and temporal effects of a large ecological restoration project on water yield across the Loess Plateau region in northern China. We estimated annual water yield as the difference between precipitation input and modelled actual evapotranspiration (ET) output. We constructed a monthly ET model using published ET data derived from eddy flux measurements and watershed streamflow data. We validated the ET models at a watershed and regional levels. The model was then applied to examine regional water yield under land cover change and climatic variability during the implementation of the Grain-for-Green (GFG) project during 1999-2007. We found that water yield in 38 % of the Loess Plateau area might have decreased (1-48 mm per year) as a result of land cover change alone. However, combined with climatic variability, 37 % of the study area might have seen a decrease in water yield with a range of 1-54 mm per year, and 35 % of the study area might have seen an increase with a range of 1-10 mm per year. Across the study region, climate variability masked or strengthened the water yield response to vegetation restoration. The absolute annual water yield change due to vegetation restoration varied with precipitation regimes with the highest in wet years, but the relative water yield changes were most pronounced in dry years. We concluded that the effects of land cover change associated with ecological restoration varied greatly over time and space and were strongly influenced by climatic variability in the arid region. The current regional vegetation restoration projects have variable effects on local water resources across the region. Land management planning must consider the influences of spatial climate variability and long-term climate change on water yield to be more effective for achieving environmental sustainability.

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Potential water yield reduction due to forestation across China

Cited by 408 publications

References 25 publications

Vegetation changes in recent large-scale ecological restoration projects and subsequent impact on water resources in China's Loess Plateau

Vegetation changes in recent large-scale ecological restoration projects and subsequent impact on water resources in China's Loess Plateau

The impact of forest regeneration on streamflow in 12 mesoscale humid tropical catchments

Regional effects of vegetation restoration on water yield across the Loess Plateau, China

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