Large woody debris budgets in the Caspar Creek Experimental Watersheds

Abstract

Monitoring of large woody debris (LWD) in the two mainstem channels of the Caspar Creek Experimental Watersheds since 1998, combined with older data from other work in the watersheds, gives estimates of channel wood input rates, survival, and outputs in intermediate-sized channels in coastal redwood forests. Input rates from standing trees for the two reaches over a 15 year period varied from a high of 28 m³/km/yr in the North Fork (in 1995) to a low of 0.12 m³/km/yr in the South Fork (from 2000 to 2002). Rates in the South Fork, where a second-growth forest was selectively logged in the 1970s, have consistently been lower than those in the North Fork, where partial clearcutting in the 1990s left buffer strips along the channel. Since 2004, inputs in both reaches have been between 2 and 8 m³/km/yr and are dominated by inputs from snags. More than 90 percent of the volume of conifer pieces that entered the channel in 1995 was still present in 2010; alder pieces from that period are mostly gone. Wood budgets demonstrate the contrast in wood volumes between the two channels and the importance of stored wood in the system.

Parent Publication

• Proceedings of the coast redwood forests in a changing California: A symposium for scientists and managers

Citation

Hilton, Sue. 2012. Large woody debris budgets in the Caspar Creek Experimental Watersheds. In: Standiford, Richard B.; Weller, Theodore J.; Piirto, Douglas D.; Stuart, John D., tech. coords. Proceedings of coast redwood forests in a changing California: A symposium for scientists and managers. Gen. Tech. Rep. PSW-GTR-238. Albany, CA: Pacific Southwest Research Station, Forest Service, U.S. Department of Agriculture. pp. 61-68.