Natural flood management: does age of forest influence flood mitigation?

Archer, N.A.L.; Otten, W.; Schmidt, S.; Bengough, G.; Shah, N.; Bonell, M.. 2014 Natural flood management: does age of forest influence flood mitigation? [Poster] In: Scottish Freshwater Group, 2014, Stirling, Scotland, 30 Oct 2014. British Geological Survey. (Unpublished)

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Abstract/Summary

Forestry has the potential to alleviate flooding by delaying the downstream passage of flood flows, reducing the volume of runoff through interception (Calder et al. 2003) and promoting rainfall infiltration into the soil (Forest Research, 2010). However, it is difficult to predict how much a forest needs to grow, before there is any significant effect on soil properties to increase the capacity to 1) store water, 2) increase soil infiltration, 3) slow water and reduce water flow connectivity to rivers. The structural coupling between plant roots and soil environment determines flow paths through the soil, where root growth and die-back influences soil hydraulic properties, increasing macropore distribution (Bengough, 2012) and soil permeability. We test the hypothesis: as the forest grows soil permeability below forests will increase, due to increasing macropore structure.

Item Type:	Publication - Conference Item (Poster)
Additional Keywords:	Natural Flood Management, Forestry, hydraulic conductivity, macroporosity, permeability
NORA Subject Terms:	Ecology and Environment Hydrology
Date made live:	05 Nov 2014 14:46 +0 (UTC)
URI:	https://nora.nerc.ac.uk/id/eprint/508738

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