News
The Benefits Of Forest Thinning For Water Management.
It might seem strange to some but wildfire-driven forest thinning can actually have huge benefits for both forest and water management, with new research published in the Ecohydrology journal showing that water loss from evapotranspiration has fallen significantly in the last 30 years.
Trees use an awful lot of water to carry out various biological tasks, as well as serving as forest steam stacks and taking water stored in the ground to expel as vapour, where it can then be used by people and ecosystems when it falls once again as rain or snow.
This is known as evapotranspiration and researchers from the National Science Foundation Southern Sierra Critical Zone Observatory (CZO) have found that excessive evapotranspiration could harm water systems, particularly during warm and prolonged droughts.
Previous forest management procedures have kept wildfires in Sierra Nevada forests to a minimum and while these are often viewed as disasters, without them forests grow very dense. But overgrown forests in the region have now been allowed to thin out by permitting these wildfires to take place.
Richard Yuretich, director of the CZO programme, explained that fire is a natural and healthy party of a forest ecosystem and can help to reduce forest water stress, as well as easing shortages during droughts.
Co-author of the study Roger Bales, a University of California Merced scientist, added: “The need for forest restoration is being driven largely by the need to lower the risk of high-intensity wildfires and restore forest health … Downstream users who benefit from the increased water yield are an important potential revenue stream that can help offset some of the costs of restoration.”
The scientists involved in this latest piece of research found that between 1990 and 2008, fire-thinned forests saved 3.7 billion gallons of water each year in the Kings River Basin in California. Not only that but 17 billion gallons of water were saved each year in the American River Basin, water that would have been lost through evapotranspiration otherwise.
Water stress and scarcity is fast becoming a hot topic in the news and it’s been suggested that water could soon become the world’s most precious commodity, above even oil. As such, the world as a whole needs to do all it can to protect this resource for future generations – and businesses can do an awful lot to make inroads in this regard.
It might be worth talking to water management consultants like H2O Building Services to find out what action you can take now to help make a difference. There are all sorts of options ranging from water recycling to water leak detection that could really help protect our water supplies and look after the planet.
And don’t forget the added benefit of saving your business money into the bargain. Water wastage through leaks can be quite astronomical and leaks can be hard to find – so you may well be spending money unnecessarily.