Forest Soil and Watershed Processes

Forest Soil and Watershed Processes

Forest Soil and Watershed Processes

This research focuses on understanding watershed conditions and processes in forested ecosystems and the effects of management activities and evaluating and improving soil and water quality and related practices and policies for forest operations. Projects include studying forest management effects on hydrology and water quality and assessment of forest road design and water quality effects.

Researchers

Faculty Research Programs

The mission of the Watersheds Research Cooperative is to conduct research on the effects of current and expected forest practices on intensively managed commercial forestland on water quality, fisheries and other water-related values.

This multidisciplinary research is centered around questions that deal with the interactions among fluvial geomorphology, hydrology and ecology at multiple scales.

Our goal is to create sustainable and resilient natural systems in which people engage with the Earth with reciprocity. Indigenous peoples have stewarded natural resources for millennia through their knowledge and traditional practices. The TEK Lab explores, facilitates, and honors the synergies between TEK, Western science, and other ways of knowing.

The mission of the Forest Soils Lab is to understand the interaction of humans with forest ecosystems in the interest of sustainable management of forest, soil and water resources. This laboratory utilizes a balanced approach of basic and applied research to examine the links between terrestrial and aquatic ecosystems at multiple scales through the study of soil, water, sediment, nutrients and carbon.  Students are educated and encouraged to manage land responsibly in the face of climate change, population growth and other pressures on natural resources. 

This laboratory conducts field, lab and modeling research on the impact of natural disturbance and land use on forest hydrology, water quality and aquatic ecosystem health and the hillslope stream reach and small catchment scale.