Multi-scale assessment of mosaic clear-cutting effects on stream flow regime in forest plantation areas

Abstract

Forest plantations are facing new environmental scenarios due to both the expansion to marginal areas and the global climate change trends, which are mainly characterized by drier and warmer climates. Faced this new climates contexts, it is necessary new planning and management techniques, which allowed reconcile the plantations water consumption to the others water uses. The better planning of clearcutting has the potential to reduce the forest management impacts, and, in this proposal the mainly objective is assess water production of different clearcutting scenarios in Eucalyptus plantation areas in two scales: regional and catchment. The study will be conducted in TINGA catchment, located in Experimental Station of Itatinga, University of São Paulo. Precipitation, stream flow data and different information of soils, vegetation, terrain and geology will be usedto calibrate hydrological models and latter simulations. The results will enable to evaluate both effects of isolated events like peak flows and frequencies of low stream flow in annual scales, providing forest management recommendations that could be used in real situations. (AU)