The loss of eastern hemlock could affect water yield and storm flow from forest watersheds in the southern Appalachians, according to a new study by U.S. Forest Service scientists at the Coweeta Hydrologic Laboratory (Coweeta) located in Otto, North Carolina. The article was recently published online in the journal Ecohydrology.
“Eastern hemlock trees have died throughout much of their range due to the hemlock woolly adelgid, an exotic invasive insect,” said Steven Brantley, a post-doctoral researcher at Coweeta and lead author of the paper. “Though this insect has decimated whole stands of eastern hemlock along streams in the southern Appalachians, few studies have addressed the effects of this insect outbreak on landscape-level watershed processes such as stream flow.”
Because of its dense evergreen foliage, eastern hemlock plays an important role in the water cycle of southern Appalachian forests, regulating stream flow year round. Although eastern hemlock rarely dominates the region’s forests, the tree is considered a foundation species in the streamside areas called riparian zones.
Previous research by the Coweeta scientists led them to suspect that the loss of eastern hemlock would cause stream flow to increase over the short-term, especially in the dormant fall/winter season, then decrease over the longer term, with small effects annually. They also thought that peak flows after storms would increase, especially in the dormant season.
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