Browse by author
Lookup NU author(s): Dr Stephen Birkinshaw, Dr James Bathurst
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License (CC BY-NC 4.0).
The Coalburn research catchment (1.5 km2) in Kielder Forest, Northern England, is a long-term project tostudy the effect of upland afforestation on hydrology. There is now a unique 45-year record; making itBritain’s longest running forest hydrology research catchment. The site was instrumented in 1967,ploughed and planted in 1972/73 and the trees have now reached maturity. Hourly meteorological datahave been measured since 1993 and these have enabled hydrological simulations to be carried out usingthe Shetran model for the period 1993–2011. The results from this work show that after ploughing therewas an increase of around 50–100 mm in annual streamflow compared with the original upland grass-land vegetation. However, the mature trees now show a decrease of around 250–300 mm in the annualstreamflow compared with the original vegetation and a decrease of around 350 mm in the annualstreamflow compared with when the site was ploughed. The simulation results show very clearly thenon-stationary nature of the catchment during 1993–2011 with an annual increase in intercepted evap-oration and a decrease in discharge as the trees grow. Simulation results also show that peak dischargesare higher for a cover of smaller trees compared with taller trees. However, the results suggest that thebigger the event the smaller is the difference, i.e. there is absolute convergence for the two different treescenarios at higher discharges. The study shows how modelling can compensate for data deficiencies, tomaximise outcomes. As a rare example of long-term analysis of non-stationary catchment behaviour it also provides real evidence of change that would otherwise have had to be inferred theoretically.
Author(s): Birkinshaw SJ, Bathurst JC, Robinson M
Publication type: Article
Publication status: Published
Journal: Journal of Hydrology
Year: 2014
Volume: 519, Part A
Pages: 559-573
Print publication date: 27/11/2014
Online publication date: 12/08/2014
Acceptance date: 26/07/2014
Date deposited: 24/09/2014
ISSN (print): 0022-1694
Publisher: Elsevier BV
URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jhydrol.2014.07.050
DOI: 10.1016/j.jhydrol.2014.07.050
Altmetrics provided by Altmetric