Dynamic Modelling of Soil Nitrogen Budget and Vegetation Colonization in Sediment Bars of a Regulated River

Abstract

AbstractIntensive forestation widely occurs in East Asian rivers. It deteriorates the ecosystem of gravelly or sandy bars, affects flood protection, and changes the landscape of the river. For the regulation of forestation and vegetative succession on the bars, a suitable tool, through either a numerical simulation model or through empirical knowledge that will predict the future process after treatment, is required. With this background, a dynamic model is developed based on the empirical knowledge obtained by field observations in order to simulate the vegetative growth process on the bars. Observations were conducted at several Japanese rivers in order to better understand tree growth and biomass, herbaceous plant biomass, and soil nitrogen content. The model is composed of four modules: a hydrological module, which provides for flood inundation, flushing and sedimentation processes, a tree module, which describes the recruitment, growth and thinning of tree densities, and a herbaceous plant module, which describes the biomass of herbs as a function of environmental conditions. Finally, there is a soil module, which mostly describes nitrogen budgets. The model was successfully applied to the Arakawa River in central Japan in order to simulate a 30‐year process after a major flood. Simulations were conducted for several cases related to the processes of two tree species: Robinia pseudoacacia and Salix spp. The model was then applied in order to elucidate the forestation mechanism of the bar, which indicated a possible reason for the effect of decreasing the supply of coarse sediment. The impact of the tree and herbaceous plants by different hydrological processes is also discussed. Copyright © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.