Collaborative research explores water storage and movement in Front Range ponderosa pine forests
Rocky Mountain researchers outfit a ponderosa pine forest with sap flow, moisture, and electrical resistivity tomography sensors in Manitou Experimental Forest.
Water - the other forest product. Water is king in the western U.S., and national forests provide a majority of water to public water systems in the West. Historical thinking centers on the water stored in surface water and groundwater in these forests, but what about the water stored in trees and other plants?
In this collaboration, researchers from the USDA Forest Service, USDA Agricultural Research Service, and Colorado State University aim to measure patterns of water storage and movement in ponderosa pine forests. Ponderosa pine is the most widely distributed pine in all of North America, and it is emblematic of Colorado’s Front Range Forests. This project combines multiple disciplines to explore how forests can serve as living reservoirs that store and buffer water availability in arid ecosystems.