Transpiration and water use of an old growth Mountain ash forest Stephen Wood, Jason Beringer, Lindsay Hutley, David McGuire, Albert Van Dijk, Musa Kilinc

Mountain Ash (Eucalyptus regnans) forests and water Water for Melbourne Obtained from 1570 km 2 of forested catchments Mountain Ash forests responsibly for 80% of stream flow Typically m at maturity Tallest recorded at 114 m Occurs in Victoria and Tasmania Cool, moist sites, 150 to 1100 m altitude, ~1000 mm annual rainfall

Wallaby Creek Catchment 45 km, north east of Melbourne 110m EC tower at old- growth site Located on Hume Plateau m elevation Flat terrain ~2% Rainfall ~1220 mm

Project objectives Measure transpiration in three different aged stands To scale up sap flux to canopy scale to compare with eddy covariance tower To measure understorey ET in old growth forest using sap flux and tower to investigate contribution on total forest water use 24 year old80 year old296 year old

Water Balance Sap flow measured at each site, including 2 main understorey species of old growth Olearia agrophylla, Pomaderris aspera Understorey and overstorey EC

Site Characteristics Site age (years) Variable understorey Average stems per hectare ± ± ± ± Mean Height (m)21.23 ± ± ± ± 1.31 Mean DBH (cm) ± ± ± ± 1.59 Minimum DBH (cm) 6.4 ± ± ± ± 1.59 Maximum DBH (cm) 70 ± ± ± ± 1.59 LAI 2.62 ± ± ± ± 0.07 Sapwood area 8.89 ± ± ± ± 0.21 Sap velocity 9.05 ± ± ± ± 1.1

Declining ET Kuczera curve Relationship between mean annual water yield and stand age shortly after fire there was a rapid decline in catchment yield water yield was predicted to returned to prefire levels, taking up to 200 years to fully recover (Kuczera et al., 1987)

300 Water use (mm.day -1 ) Sapwood area Overstorey tree ET Previous studies argue that sap velocity is constant with age and because sapwood area declines so to does transpiration of the stand. They argue that understorey ET is negligible Our results have shown a decrease in sap wood area and transpiration of the overstorey trees (Haydon et al., 1996, pp. 351)

Comparison of total ET from EC tower and sap flow Results contradict past studies that assume understorey ET is negligible Understorey ET makes up 48% of total summer ET Consistent with LAI Negligible understorey transpiration attributed to low VPD Tower data shows RH around 62% - not close to saturation Little difference in air temp within canopy

20 year old site – year old site – year old site – Mountain Ash – 1.52 Understorey – 1.45 Change forest transpiration with stand age Annual understorey water use calculated as difference between total ET from tower and Mountain Ash sap flow Understorey ET was a larger proportion of total presumably because of much higher soil evaporation in summer.

Kuczera’s curve unique No immediate increase in yield expected with loss of vegetation most studies of catchment disturbance show an initial increase in yield Proceeded by a decline in yields associated with vigorous regrowth Then a small decline in ET back to pre-disturbance levels (Watson et al. 1999)

Conclusions Slight decline in ET with forest age Understorey extremely important in constructing total forest ET These findings provide additional information that can be used to further interpret and refine the relationships suggested by Kuczera. Acknowledgements This study was funded by the Australian Research Council (DP ). We are grateful to Melbourne Water and Parks Victoria for their support. This research was conducted under permit number Thanks to Robert Van Pelt, Stephen Sillett and George Koch for providing data on site and tree characteristics.