Session1Alila

Effects of the Mountain Pine Beetle Epidemics and Treatments on Hydrology-------------------------------------Urgent Practical Problems in Need for Immediate Solutions : 

Effects of the Mountain Pine Beetle Epidemics and Treatments on Hydrology ------------------------------------- Urgent Practical Problems in Need for Immediate Solutions Hydrology for the Orographically Challenged PUB in the Mountainous Regions 28 November, 2005 Dr. Younes Alila, P.Eng. Faculty of Forestry UBC

Presentation Outline: 

Presentation Outline Mountain Pine Beetle: Introduction Mountain Pine Beetle: Regional, and Potentially National and a Continental Crisis Mountain Pine Beetle and Watershed Hydrology Current State of Knowledge and Overall Traditional Approach to Research in Forest Hydrology Traditional Studies in Forest Hydrology Stand Level Studies Paired Watershed Studies Mountain Pine Beetle: Opportunity to Conduct Research That Address PUB Related Question

Mountain Pine Beetle: Historical Background : 

Mountain Pine Beetle: Historical Background MPB Infestations are natural disturbances Historically mother nature had always taken care of controlling the spread of MPB Severe colds is the MPB’s biggest enemy! An early fall cold snap of -30 C for as little as one day will kill pine beetles. Colder winters in BC is believed to be the natural line of defense. Climate change raising temperature through western Canada have caused the beetle to spread out of control 1985, when the Vanderhoof area was last hit with – 37 C Halloween, was the last time pine beetles in BC met a killing cold in the fall. Source Vancouver Sun Nov. 8, 2005

Mountain Pine Beetle Current Drama: 

Mountain Pine Beetle Current Drama As off summer 2005, 10 million hectares of infested pine in BC. By 2013, MPB expected to kill 80% of the 1.2 Billion cubic meters of BC pine Loss of this much timber would cost an estimate of $2 Billion per year to government coffers for years to come. MPB infestations have now moved so far south that cold winters are not likely effectively able to control the spread MPB has made its way over to the Rockies from both Northern and Southern BC Experts are warning that it will make its way across the boreal forest and south into the US Disaster in BC could soon be a national and possibly a continental epidemic. Source Vancouver Sun Nov. 8, 2005

Mountain Pine Beetle and Hydrology: 

Mountain Pine Beetle and Hydrology As part of the efforts in controlling the spread and minimizing economic losses, BC government is adapting a strategy for salvage logging of MPB affected areas. However, beetle is killing trees much faster than the BC Forest Industry can harvest it! Whether leaving the trees to die or salvage logging them is now creating unprecedented forest disturbances that might be equivalent to 70% to 100% clear cuts over large drainages (10s and 100s of square km). Effects of these large scale disturbances on the watershed hydrologic response could be dramatic and can not be inferred from current literature.

Basis for Current State of Knowledge in Forest Hydrology?: 

Basis for Current State of Knowledge in Forest Hydrology? Historically, there are two types of studies: Stand level studies investigating forest canopy interaction with processes (rainfall and snow interception, snow accumulation and melt) Stand level water and energy balance designed to quantify the differences between forested and clear cut stands. Substantial amount of work done … The Challenge: How does this body of knowledge translate into a watershed scale function such as streamflow???

Basis for Current State of Knowledge in Forest Hydrology?: 

Basis for Current State of Knowledge in Forest Hydrology? Historically, there are two types of studies: Paired watershed studies: Hydrologic response in a control and treatment watersheds are monitored pre and post logging … Statistics are then applied to test whether the difference in response characteristics are significant… Long-term experiments, very expensive, need many replicates of such studies. The Challenge: studies conducted most often on small drainages that are often less than few square km in size. How valid is it to extrapolate these largely experimental findings to larger watersheds?

Mountain Pine Beetle: The Opportunity: 

Mountain Pine Beetle: The Opportunity MPB created funding opportunities for research addressing the effects of MPB infestations and treatments on the environment in general and hydrology in particular. Major strings attached with such funding: scientists can only access the funds if they can demonstrate that their proposed research projects can provide answers to these urgent problems in one or two years. Some scientists have given up on such a source of funding on the basis that they could not possibly deliver on a short time frame.

Mountain Pine Beetle: The Opportunity: 

Mountain Pine Beetle: The Opportunity Other scientists took up the challenge and used these constraints of short term delivery as an opportunity to conduct research outside the traditional box of studying a single hillslope, stream reach, forest road segment, and a single stream cross section. The need for immediate solutions to MPB hydrology problems is guiding some scientists to adapt their existing research projects and / or create new research projects designed specifically to address the topic of this workshop: PUB in Mountainous Terrains

Mountain Pine Beetle: The Opportunity: 

Mountain Pine Beetle: The Opportunity Designing field experiments over spatial scales larger than a single hillslope or a few square km watershed. Here we are talking about designing field experiments over 10s and 100s of square km. Since the experimental design is over spatial scales larger than what we are accustomed to, the experimental design ought to be cost effective and therefore creative in the use of the newly emerging instrumentation technologies. Since the experimental design is over much shorter temporal or time scales, the experimental design ought to be creative in exploring ways of trading space for time.

Mountain Pine Beetle: The Opportunity: 

Mountain Pine Beetle: The Opportunity Since the ultimate objective is to improve our ability to predict the hydrologic response at larger watersheds (ungauged basins), there is a need to design these experiments for the purpose of testing existing modelling theories and potentially develop better modelling concepts based on new understanding of how the watershed responds. This would only be possible by bringing modellers and experimentalists to the same table and have them work together from the early stages of designing the experiment.

Mountain Pine Beetle: The Opportunity: 

Mountain Pine Beetle: The Opportunity No matter how cost effective we could be, this new way of conducting research over larger spatial scales can still be very demanding in terms of financial and intellectual resources. No single scientist has enough clutter, capacity, weight, and credentials to either convince any funding agency to provide such a large sums of funding or conduct such study on his or her own. Here lies the need for a team of scientists (even within the field of hydrology on its own) to come together and collaborate on such studies.

Study Areas: 

Study Areas Carnation Creek Redfish Creek Penticton Creek

Partnerships: Field Experts with Modelers: 

Partnerships: Field Experts with Modelers IN COLLABORATION WITH: Eugene Hetherington @ Carnation David Spittlehouse @ UPC and Carnation Rita Winkler @ UPC Dave Toews, Dave Gluns and Peter Jordan @ Redfish FUNDED BY: All of our modelling work continues to be funded by FRBC, FII, FIA, FSP and any future reincarnation of the same agency.

Using Models in Forest HydrologyForestry @ UBC: 

Using Models in Forest Hydrology Forestry @ UBC Experimenting with models to address questions related to forest management an in particular effect of logging on the peak flow regime DHSVM: “physically” based heavily parameterized … can only be applied at heavily instrumented watersheds…(small drainages less than 20 square km) UBCWM: Simpler conceptual model designed for larger drainages and can be driven by much less amount of the data input…operational model adopted by many industries but not forestry…MPB related hydrology questions…creating 100% ECA in much larger watersheds (10s and 100s of square km).

Setting the Stage for Scenario Analysis Using these Models: 

Setting the Stage for Scenario Analysis Using these Models Thyer, M., Beckers, J., Spittlehouse, D., Alila, Y. and Winkler, R. (2004) Diagnosing a distributed hydrologic model for two high elevation forested catchments based on detailed stand- and basin-scale data, Water Resources Research, 40(1), W01103, doi:10.1029/2003WR002414 Whitaker, A., Y. Alila, J. Beckers, and D. Toews (2003), An application of the Distributed Hydrology Soil Vegetation (DHSVM) model to the Redfish Creek Watershed Experiment in Southeastern B.C. using internal catchment data, Hydrological Processes, 17: 199-224. Beckers J. and Y. Alila (2004), A model of rapid preferential hillslope runoff contributions to peak flow generation in a temperate rainforest watershed, Water Resources Research, 40, W03501, DOI:10.1029/2003WR002582.

Analysis of Forest Management Scenarios Using Long-Term Simulation Experiment: 

Analysis of Forest Management Scenarios Using Long-Term Simulation Experiment

Publish or …: 

Publish or … Schnorbus M. and Y Alila (2004a), Generation of an hourly meteorological time series for use in numerical hydrologic modelling, Journal of Hydrometeorology, 5(5), 862-882.  Schnorbus M. and Y. Alila (2004b), Forest harvesting influences on the peak flow regime in the Columbia Mountains of south eastern BC: An investigation using long-term numerical modelling, Water Resources Research, Vol. 40, W05205, doi:10.1029/2003WR002918. Whitaker, A., Y. Alila, J. Beckers, and D. Toews (2002), Evaluating peak flow sensitivity to clear-cutting in different elevation bands of a snowmelt-dominated mountainous catchment, Water Resources Research, Vol. 38 (9): 1172-1188. Alila Y. and J. Beckers (2001), Using numerical modelling to address hydrologic forest management issues in British Columbia, Hydrological Processes, 15: 3371-3387.

A Newly Established Cotton Creek Project University-Government-Industry Initiative Funded by Tembec, FSP, and MoF: 

A Newly Established Cotton Creek Project University-Government-Industry Initiative Funded by Tembec, FSP, and MoF Science Team Members: Younes Alila and Markus Weiler (UBC Forestry) Brett Eaton (UBC Geography) David Gluns (BC Forest Services) Kim Green (Apex Geoscience Consultants)

Slide20: 

“A focus on small scales and a desire for accuracy and predictability in some disciplines has encouraged scientific myopia, with landscape “big picture” often relegated to arm waving and speculation. This could lead to several problems, some of which are already happening: There may be a tendency to over rely on science as the ultimate arbitrator in environmental debates at the wrong scales. This can lead to the creation of unrealistic management and regulatory policies, and the favoring of certain forms of knowledge over other forms, such as promoting quantitative and precise answers at small scales over qualitative and imprecise ones at large scales. Science may be used as a smoke screen to justify continuing studies or management actions in the face of little potential for increased understanding using existing theories and technologies at certain scales. Science can be used as an unrealistic litmus test, requiring detailed and precise answers to complex questions at small scales when no such answers at that scale will be forthcoming in the near future. Finally, the persistent, ideological, and divisive environmental debates that have arisen in part based on the problems of scale outlined above may undermine the public’s belief in science. It may also weaken the support of policy makers for applying science to environmental problems. To attack the problem of scale in watershed science, management, and regulation will require developing new conceptual frameworks and theories that explicitly address interdisciplinary processes, scientific uncertainty, and new forms of knowledge.” Lee Benda and Daniel Miller (2001) Beyond Arm Waving: Thinking Critically at Large Scales