marmot creek research basin workshop barrier lake field station 21-22 february 2013
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MARMOT CREEK R
ESEARCH
BASIN W
ORKSHOP
BA
RR
I ER
LA
KE
FI E
LD
ST A
TI O
N
2 1 - 2 2 FE
BR
UA
RY
2 0 1 3
MARMOT CREEK BASIN: MANAGING FORESTS FOR WATER
CABIN AND TWIN CREEK EXPERIMENTS1962-1987
MARMOT CREEK SUBBASINS
Subbasin Drainage Treatment Area (ha) (completion date)
Cabin Creek 212 (50%)* Commercial cut (1974)
Middle Creek 285 None (control)
Twin Creek 264 (50%) Honeycomb cut (1979)
*Percentage below tree line
OBJECTIVE OF CABIN CREEK TREATMENT
To determine if the guidelines of the Alberta Forest Service
for commercial cutting in spruce-fir forests were
satisfactory for maintaining the volume of high quality
water that these watersheds yield
(Swanson et al., 1986)
ALBERTA FOREST SERVICE GUIDELINES• No debris from road construction and maintenance, and logging
shall be allowed to enter any water courses
• Roads shall be located and constructed so as to cause a minimum of soil erosion and sediment deposition in streams, and no road shall restrict the natural flow of streams
• Abandoned skid roads and trails shall have adequate drainage to prevent erosion
• No green timber shall be cut within 100 feet of the high water mark of any water course
• Logging methods (i.e. skidding) shall be confined to the use of horses, rubber tired skidders or crawler tractors
(Rothwell 1977)
THE COMMERCIAL CUTTING ON CABIN CREEK SUBBASIN
(Rothwell, 1977)
23
1
4
5
6
(Rothwell 1977)
OBSERVED AND PREDICTED SWE ON CABIN SUBBASIN BELOW TREELINE AT MAXIMUM SNOW PACK, 1975-1977
(After Golding and Swanson 1986)
0
20
40
60
80
100
120
140
160
180
200ObservedPredicted
Sn
ow
wa
ter
eq
uiv
ale
nt (m
m)
PREDICTED VS OBSERVED STREAMFLOWS FOR CABIN CREEK DURING THE POSTTREATMENT
PERIOD
(After Swanson et al., 1986)
Jan Feb March April May June July Aug. Sept. Oct. Nov. Dec.0
40
80
120
160
200
Predicted if left uncut
Observed after logging
Mo
nth
ly f
low
(d
am
3)
OBJECTIVE OF TWIN CREEK TREATMENT
To prolong recession flow from snowmelt and/or delay
the time to peak runoff
(Research Coordinating Committee,
Alberta Watershed Research Program, 1977)
HYDROGRAPHS ILLUSTRATING OBJECTIVE OF THE TWIN CREEK TREATMENT
(After Swanson and Hillman 1977)
5-May 15-May 25-May 4-Jun 14-Jun 24-Jun 4-Jul 14-Jul 24-Jul 3-Aug0
5
10
15
20
25
30
35
40
Noname Creek (Control)Fox Creek (60% logged)
Dis
cha
rge
(L
itre
/s/k
m2
)
1974
Mean maximum snow accumulation, 1973-1976, in forest openings at James River, near Caroline. (After Golding 1977)
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
0
1/41/2
3/41
2 3
4 5 6
Opening diameter (tree heights (H) )
Sn
ow
ac
cu
mu
lati
on
(c
m w
. e
.)
Mean snow accumulation at last measurement of the season,1973-1976, James River, near Caroline (After Golding , 1977)
0
0.5
1
1.5
2
2.5
3
3.5
4
4.5
0
1/4
1/2
3/4
12
3
4
5 6
Opening diameter (tree heights (H)) Sn
ow
ac
cu
mu
lati
on
(c
m w
. e.)
DETAILS OF TWIN CREEK SUBBASIN TREATMENT
• Based on the James River results, treatment of Twin consisted of 2103 circular clearings of 15 m and 20 m diameter, or 3/4 to 1 1/2 times the height of the surrounding forest
• 40% (52.8 ha) of the forested area cleared
• Mechanical clearing over most of the subbasin
• Clearings centred on alternate intersections of a square grid 15 or 20 m apart
• Slash and non-merchantable trees were flattened
• Merchantable trees were removed in tree lengths with rubber-tired skidders. Horse logging was tried on a small portion of the subbasin
(Golding and Swanson, 1986)
HONEYCOMB TREATMENT APPLIED TO TWIN CREEK SUBBASIN
(Golding and
Swanson,
1986)
SNOW ACCUMULATION ON TWIN SUBBASIN BELOW TREELINE AT MAXIMUM SNOWPACK,
MARCH 1980-1982 (410 MEASUREMENT POINTS)
(After Golding and Swanson 1986)
Subbasin Actual
Subbasin predicted
Clearings Intervening forest
0
50
100
150
200
250
300 198019811982All years
Sn
ow
wa
ter
eq
uiv
ale
nt (
mm
)
EFFECTS OF TWIN TREATMENT ON STREAMFLOW
Nakiska resort and ski runs were built between 1985 and 1987; some ski
runs intruded on Twin Creek subbasin (also snow- making
machines?)
Streamflow was measured on Cabin, Middle and Twin Creeks up to the
end of 1986
This suggests that there are five years of post-treatment streamflow
data (1980 -1984) that can be used to evaluate the effects of the Twin
treatment, or 4 years if we exclude the year following treatment
I used all the data available for Middle Creek and Twin Creek to obtain
some tentative results. I defined 1964 – 1977 as the pretreatment
period and 1980 – 1986 as the posttreatment period
CALIBRATION FOR PREDICTING TWIN CREEK JUNE STREAMFLOW
Water Survey of Canada data
200 300 400 500 600 700 800 900 10000
100
200
300
400
500
600
700
800
900
1000
Middle Creek - June streamflow (dam3)
Tw
in -
Ju
ne
str
ea
mflo
w (
da
m3
)
slope = 0.912
intercept = 97.836
PREDICTED VS OBSERVED STREAMFLOWS FOR TWIN CREEK DURING THE POST- TREATMENT PERIOD
Water Survey of Canada data
Jan Feb Mar Apr May June July Aug Sept Oct Nov Dec0.0
100.0
200.0
300.0
400.0
500.0Predicted
Observed
Mo
nth
ly f
low
(d
am
3)
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