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Forest Flows

 

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The programme aims to create a biophysical model of forest hydrology that accurately predicts water retention and release for entire catchments while also obtaining water quality and quantity data that can be updated regularly (eg. weekly). This will ensure that New Zealanders have a sustainable and reliable water supply, a reliable source of high-quality drinking water, and that our land uses preserve social and cultural values.

 

This programme will seek to protect primary sector productivity and improve water quality, flood mitigation and current/ future demands for rural/ urban users by qualifying water storage and release by planted forests. It will also quantify the positive and negative impacts of planted forests on water resources, including any potential impact resulting from intensification of planted forests.

 

It will determine whether some tree species and forest types are better at flood mitigation than others and identify planted forests that have the potential to be passive water reservoir systems.

 

Research aims

The programme aims to create a biophysical model of forest hydrology that accurately predicts water storage and release for entire catchments, while also providing data on changes in water quality over time.

 

This programme will: 

  • Identify key forest hydrological processes by combining monitoring of soil-plant-atmosphere interactions with a range of targeted ground-based research over the long-term.
  • Develop and use remote-sensing tools, to collect data that spans catchments and planted forests and can be linked to key forest hydrological processes.
  • Create a model that predicts hydrological flow across a range of NZ planted forests.
  • Create an decision making framework that provides the necessary information to optimise water use in planted forests.

 

Impact Areas (IAs)

Quantifying water processes within a forested catchment

By 2024, we will have identified and quantified the key above- and below-ground processes that govern water quantity and nutrient attenuation and transport within planted forested catchments. This new knowledge will provide the international scientific community with a fundamentally new understanding of the key processes governing planted-forest hydrology. The mechanistic processes will provide the key algorithms for our forest hydrology model to accurately simulate water quantity and nutrient attenuation in planted forests throughout New Zealand.

 

Spatially quantify forest water flux and storage at different scales with novel remote-sensing technology

By 2024, we will have developed a rapid, low cost, novel methodology to identify and quantify key hydrological processes spatially across a planted forest. This technology will enable:

  • Accurate scaling of point measurements to the planted forest catchment scale;
  • Accurate 3-dimensional modelling of key hydrological processes spatially across a forested catchment;
  • Accurate modelling of water quantity and quality fluxes across multiple catchments and scales to the forest level.

These outputs will provide the key parameters and algorithms for the planted forest hydrology model to accurately calibrate and simulate water quantity and quality fluxes spatially in planted forests throughout New Zealand.

 

Develop and apply an assessment framework for the environmental, socioeconomic, and cultural impacts of planted forests on downstream water ecosystem services

By the end of 2024, we will have assessed the environmental, socioeconomic, and cultural impacts of upstream planted forests on downstream water ecosystem services. This will enable:

 

  • Development of effective and efficient land-use regulations to promote positive impacts and mitigate negative impacts of planted forests on downstream water availability;
  • Design of effective and efficient policy incentives (e.g., water compensation of planted forest owners using best forest practices) to promote the adoption of optimal-water-use forestry regimes.

Given the policy focus of this statement, our findings will be shared directly with key local stakeholders, policymakers, and relevant government agencies.

 

Collaborators

New Zealand-based collaborators include

International collaborators include