Using a Nested Watershed Approach to Assess Cumulative Effects of Forest Disturbance on Hydrology in a Sub-Boreal Forested Watershed

森林扰动对水文的影响一直是一个重要的研究课题，但大多数研究都是在小流域（<100 km2）上进行的，很少对大流域（100 ~ 1000 km2）进行研究。在我的NSERC发现基金（2005-2012;2013/2015）的支持下，我们成功地开发了一种分离森林干扰和气候变率对水文的相对贡献的方法，并将该方法的应用发表在高影响力期刊上（如Water Resources Research， Journal of hydrology）。我们的进步引出了一个重要的研究问题，这个问题将在本提案中讨论。由于我们以前的研究通常将大流域视为“黑盒子”，因此无法理解大流域森林扰动累积水文响应的潜在机制和过程。因此，一个关键的研究需要是评估森林干扰如何在不同的时空尺度上累积影响水文。要解决这个问题，需要一个嵌套分水岭方法。

The impact of forest disturbance on hydrology has long been an important research topic, but the majority of this research has been conducted on small watersheds (<100 km2) with rare examination of large ones (>1000 km2). With the support from my NSERC Discovery Grants (2005-2012; 2013/2015), we have successfully developed a method for separating relative contributions of forest disturbance and climate variability to hydrology, and the applications of the method have been published on the high-impact journals (e.g., Water Resources Research, Journal of Hydrology). Our progress has led an important research question, which will be addressed in this proposal. As our previous studies normally treated large watersheds as “black boxes”, they would not lead to understanding of underlying mechanisms and processes which govern the cumulative hydrological responses to forest disturbance in large watersheds. Thus, a critical research need is to assess how forest disturbance cumulatively influences hydrology over different spatial and temporal scales. To address this question, a nested watershed approach is required.