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Snowmelt energy flux recovery during rain-on-snow in regenerating forests Floyd, William Charles

Abstract

Rain-on-snow (ROS) is a major contributor to flooding and landslides in many temperate coastal watersheds around the world. Research has shown that forest harvesting can increase melt rates during ROS at both the stand and watershed scale. Because of this, post disturbance hydrological recovery is of interest in watersheds where forest management is prevalent. Recent research that pairs events by frequency rather than chronologically has indicated that forest cover removal can have a significant effect on the magnitude and frequency of extreme events, which is counter to the dominant view in forest hydrology. Hydrological modelling provides a means to apply frequency based analysis in watersheds with short data records, but models must be tested and validated in coastal watersheds before they can be applied extensively. A key challenge to testing models is the inherent difficulty with collecting data in ROS environments. Therefore, the objectives of this research were to design a methodology that recorded previously unobserved processes, use these data to validate model simulations and assess stand level energy flux recovery during ROS. Data were collected at a range of elevations within recently harvested, regenerating and old growth forests. The Cold Regions Hydrological Model generally performed well at capturing the dynamics of snow accumulation and melt, however, snow water equivalent was generally over-predicted. Depths of transient snowpacks were generally under-predicted, however, once a snowpack was established model performance improved. Clear-cut forests had higher mean and greater variability of energy inputs resulting in large events occurring more frequently than in old or second growth forests. Energy flux recovery was evident within the regenerating forests; however, both the rates of recovery and differences among stands depended on the location and the variables compared. When either the mean or standard deviation of energy inputs differed from that of old growth forests, energy flux recovery was reduced as events became larger and less frequent. It is probable that results obtained from this study will translate to stream flow in watersheds with steep slopes, shallow soils and extensive preferential flow networks (i.e. high run-off coefficients), especially when run-off generating areas are synchronized.

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Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International