On the future of forest hydrology and biogeochemistry

✍ Scribed by Jeffrey J. McDonnell; Tadashi Tanaka

• Publisher: John Wiley and Sons
• Year: 2001
• Tongue: English
• Weight: 60 KB
• Volume: 15
• Category: Article
• ISSN: 0885-6087
• DOI: 10.1002/hyp.493

✦ Synopsis

The accompanying special issue is a distillation of papers from that meeting. These papers represent a cross section of work from both countries across the physical-biogeochemical interface. It is just over 30 years since Hewlett and Hibbert's seminal work on the variable source area was published. As we enter the 21 st century, the traditional domain of forest hydrologists is changing: from paired catchment studies examining changes in water balance associated with afforestation or deforestation, to issues of physical controls on stream biogeochemistry, process-based modelling, tracing water flowpath, residence time and mixing modeling. Nevertheless, while the orientation of forest hydrology has changed a great deal in the past 30 years, the basic concepts have changed only slightly.

More detailed process representations are being provided for more catchments. Yet, rather than synthesis of common findings across catchments (that might reveal common controlling processes), much of the science is directed at studying the idiosyncrasies of "yet another catchment". Particular processes such as macropore flow, capillary fringe-induced groundwater ridging, rapid effusion of old water from hillslopes, etc. have occupied many journal pages in recent decades, but conceptual advancement beyond variable source area theory has been limited.

The discussions at the workshop began with an examination of the following questions:

ž How does US and Japan catchment hydrology differ? ž What questions motivate research in the U.S. vs Japan? ž How much overlap is there in approach and content?

The consensus at the meeting was that catchment hydrology in Japan is grounded more in process-oriented research with soil physical origins. Much of the catchment hydrology research in the US is grounded in engineering and now motivated by explaining