Landscape-Scale Forest Management in the Municipal Watersheds of Vienna, Austria, and Seattle, USA: Commonalities Despite Disparate Ecology and History

Abstract

Responding to public health crises over a century ago, the cities of Vienna and Seattle established the infrastructure to convey clean drinking water from mountainous forested watersheds to urban populations. At that time, the land was subject to diverse land uses primarily centered on resource extraction. Today both protected watersheds have the primary ecosystem service goal of supplying clean water, but the specific objectives of forest conservation and management are quite different. In the Vienna Water Protection Zone (VWPZ), the objective is to slow percolation and filter water by developing naturally functioning soil layers under continuous cover natural forest. In Seattle's Cedar River Municipal Watershed (CRMW), the objective is to restore late-seral forest habitat to benefit fish and wildlife species of concern. Each watershed has unique hydrogeology, natural forest biodiversity, and forest management history, but the application of diverse forest management objectives takes surprisingly similar management methods and techniques. Each watershed prohibits clearcut timber harvest while promoting improved biodiversity and resilience through structural thinning, variable density thinning, and facilitating development of multi-aged forests.