Abstract
The influence of forest environment characteristics especially forest vegetation and soil are the main causative, non‐climatic agents shaping water processes in forest ecosystems. The impact of land cover changes on direct runoff from a forest catchment was examined. Hydrological modeling was employed. The runoff module of the model was cascade of linear reservoir solution. The rainfall separation module is based on the SCS‐CN method altered by means of a unique methodology. Thus, the main investigation effort was applied to work out a methodological solution. The model was tested in a lowland forest catchment located in the Polish part of Central European Plain. Calibration was performed for the current cover state along with simulation for 9 hypothetical cases and a case based on reconstruction of the historic state of land cover. The cases of land cover state were developed on the basis of qualitative and/or quantitative vegetation property changes.
Highlights
Water processes observed on areas covered with forests usually differ distinctively from those occurring on other, sometimes superficially similar, agricultural sites
Hydrological processes are dependant on biomass filling in forest ecosystems which is a forest habitat characteristic
Until recently a substantial amount of research has been done to explain the issues related to forest ecosystem-hydrological process interaction, many questions still need answers and further explanation
Summary
Water processes observed on areas covered with forests usually differ distinctively from those occurring on other, sometimes superficially similar, agricultural sites. Hydrological processes are dependant on biomass filling in forest ecosystems which is a forest habitat characteristic. Until recently a substantial amount of research has been done to explain the issues related to forest ecosystem-hydrological process interaction, many questions still need answers and further explanation. The current state of knowledge results in that most of the hydrological models employed in rainfallrunoff modeling are conceptual or semi-conceptual solutions. These relatively simple models are built on an assumption that not all the dependences can be described with a thorough knowledge of physical nature of related processes, these models are still successfully used, especially for operational purposes. Regardless of the above mentioned limitations, the issue of land use changes impact on runoff modeling seems to have been gaining still an increasing scientific attention [7,8,9,10]
Sign-in/Register to view highlights & summary Sign-in/Register to access full text options 
Free) 
Talk to us
Join us for a 30 min session where you can share your feedback and ask us any queries you have
Schedule a call
