Water storages in plants and soils in two community forests of Karen tribe, northern Thailand

Abstract

This study aims to evaluate the roles of community forests managed for different purposes on water storages in plants and soils as the basic information for watershed management. Community forests of Karen people in Chiang Mai province, northern Thailand, were divided to conservation (CF) and utilization (UF) forests. These community forests were classified as pinemontane and montane forests. The number of tree species in the CF and the UF was 256 and 132, respectively. Shannon-Wiener Index in the CF (4.5±0.6) was higher than in the UF (3.4±1.0). Forest biomass was higher in the CF (252.4±72. , respectively. More than 90 % of water was stored in soil. The maximum capacities of water storage within 2 m soil depths of the CF and the UF were 9584 ±934 and 9463 ±233 m 3 ha -1 , respectively. The water storage amounts in soils in rainy season were 73.8 % and 79.2 % of maximum capacities in the CF and the UF, respectively. In winter, the storages changed to 80.5 % and 74.6 %, and in dry season they decreased to be 39.5 % and 23.7 %. Timber harvest in the UF was the main cause of forest degradation and decrease in biomass water storage. The water storage by these community forests can reduce flash flooding and water supply from them is greatly beneficial to the villagers＇ livelihood and also to the lower land communities.

Restoration of Water Storage Potential in a Degraded Dry Dipterocarp Forest with Enrichment Planting of Three Needle Pine (Pinus kesiya Royle ex Gordon), Northern Thailand

“…Within 100 cm soil, this soil had the MWHC of 5,113.74 m 3 /ha. This value was nearly the same to the deep soil of Order Ultisols in the lower montane forest, 4,956 m 3 /ha (Khamyong et al, 2014a). Sumanochitraporn et al (2014) found that the deep soil (the Ultisols) in a 22-year-old teak plantation could store the lower amount of water at 3,617.60 m 3 /ha while the Ultisols under the 22-year-old three needle pine had the higher value of 5,632.87 m 3 /ha (Khamyong et al, 2014b).…”

“…As for the degraded lower montane forest which had the amount of biomass at 79.48 Mg/ha, the contribution of pine to the biomass was high as 67.94% of the total. Khamyong et al (2014a) studied water storage in the lower montane forest in northern Thailand. The community forest of Karen village was divided into the conservation forest (CF) and the utilization forest (UF).…”

“…However, very few data are available for the water quantity stored in the plant biomass of forests. As for the montane forest, Khamyong et al (2014a) provided the pioneer work on water storage in plants and soils of two community montane forests of Karen tribe in northern Thailand. Phongkhamphanh et al (2018) compared the water storage potential of two-site DDFs.…”