Modeling Impacts Of Forest Management Practices On Water And Nitrogen Fluxes Within A First-Order Catchment

Forest management practices such as clearcutting, site preparation, ditching, and ditch network maintenance increase nitrogen (N) load to streams. In environmentally sustainable forestry, water protection actions are required to decrease the nutrient loading. These include e.g. use of uncut buffer zones between a clear-cut area and a waterbody, sedimentation ponds in the ditch network and overland flow fields. In practical forestry, there is an increasing need for developing design criteria for effective protective actions. Clearly, the efficiency of a protective construction depends on a complex interaction between the catchment, the treatment area, atmosphere, vegetation, microbes and soil.