Assessment of soil erosion sensitivity and post-timber-harvesting erosion response in a mountain environment of Central Italy

Abstract

This study aimed to assess the effects of forest management on the occurrence of accelerated soil erosion by water. The study site is located in a mountainous area of the Italian Central Apennines. Here, forest harvesting is a widespread forestry activity and is mainly performed on the moderate to steep slopes of the highlands. Through modeling operations based on data on soil properties and direct monitoring of changes in the post-forest-harvesting soil surface level at the hillslope scale, we show that the observed site became prone to soil erosion after human intervention. Indeed, the measured mean soil erosion rate of 49tha−1yr−1 for the harvested watershed is about 21 times higher than the rate measured in its neighboring undisturbed forested watershed (2.3tha−1yr−1). The erosive response is greatly aggravated by exposing the just-harvested forest, with very limited herbaceous plant cover, to the aggressive attack of the heaviest annual rainfall without adopting any conservation practices. The erosivity of the storms during the first four months of field measurements was 1571MJmmh−1ha−1 in total (i.e., from September to December 2008). At the end of the experiment (16months), 18.8%, 26.1% and 55.1% of the erosion monitoring sites in the harvested watershed recorded variations equal or greater than 0–5, 5–10 and >10mm, respectively. This study also provides a quantification of Italian forestland surfaces with the same pedo-lithological characteristics exploited for wood supply. Within a period of ten years (2002–2011), about 9891ha of coppice forest changes were identified and their potential soil erosion rates modeled.