Upper Feather River Watershed

Estimating the Water Supply Benefits from Forest Restoration in the Northern Sierra Nevada

Using syntheses of over 150 studies on the relationship between forest harvest and water yield, we estimated the potential water yield impacts from mechanical thinning to restore a forest's ability to store snow and use water more efficiently. Our analysis suggests that, if the current scale of forest restoration is increased three-fold, there could be up to a 6 percent increase in the mean annual streamflow for individual watersheds. In the Feather River, the watershed with the greatest area available for thinning, we estimated thinning might produce ~97,000—285,000 acre feet of additional runoff.

This report examines the extent to which investing in forest and meadow restoration could increase water supply and improve the timing of water availability. We focused our analysis specifically on restoration at the watershed-scale on national forests in the northern Sierra Nevada.

2015-08-21

2015-08-21

Podolak, K., D. Edelson, S. Kruse, B. Aylward, M. Zimring, and N. Wobbrock. 2015.
Estimating the Water Supply Benefits from Forest Restoration in the Northern Sierra Nevada. An unpublished report of The Nature Conservancy prepared with Ecosystem Economics

Economics, Evapotransipiration, Forest Management, Groundwater, Logging, Thinning, Water Cycle, Water supply

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