The Effects of Uniform Thinning and Patch Cutting on Soil Moisture Storage in the Black Spur Catchments, Victoria
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.33178/Keywords:
botany, soil, australiaAbstract
It is generally recognised that soil moisture storage plays an important role in the generation of surface water run-off (Mein et.al. 1988, Burch et al. 1987, Wheater and Weaver 1980). Following clearing on a forest watershed in West Virginia, Patrick and Reinhart (1971) attributed. yield increases to an increase in soil moisture storage. On the Coranderrk catchment's Victoria, Duncan and Heeps (1980) found that soil moisture also increased following clearfelling. Similarly thinning of a Eucalyptus marginata forest in Western Australia resulted in an increase in soil moisture storage and Stoneman (1986) attributed the lack of a substantial streamflow increase to this factor. In separate studies of forest to pasture conversion in California and Western Australia, both Hibbert (1969) and Sharman et al. (1987) respectively observed an increase in soil moisture storage. Hibbert (1969) suggested that the greater availability of- moisture in the upper soil layers following clearing, where it could be exploited by the shallow rooted pasture grasses, might result in a continued high evapotranspiration rather than the decrease which might be expected to result.
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