A review of catchment experiments to determine the effect of vegetation changes on water yield and evapotranspiration

Abstract

This summary and review of 94 catchment experiments shows that accumulated information on the effect of vegetation changes on water yield can be used for practical purposes. The direction of change in water yield following forest operations can be predicted with fair accuracy since no experiments, with the exception of perhaps one, have resulted in reductions in water yield with reductions in cover, or increases in yield, with increases in cover. The approximate magnitude of changes can also be estimated. Pine and eucalypt forest types cause on average 40-mm change in water yield per 10% change in cover and deciduous hardwood and scrub ∼25 and 10 mm, respectively. Maximum changes of 660 mm were experienced at Coweeta, North Carolina. An assimilation of the collective experimental results shows that more careful design and expansion of experiments to certain rainfall regions would augment statistical inference.