Forests and Water 



TIMBER CUTTING AND WATER YIELDS 



H. G. WILM 



THE VALUE of forest vegetation 

 in protecting watershed land has 

 been so clearly demonstrated that its 

 development and maintenance are rec- 

 ognized more and more as a powerful 

 tool to control erosion and floods. 



Forests are useful for this purpose in 

 wide areas of the United States in 

 the Ohio River Valley, the southern 

 Mississippi River Valley, and the Ap- 

 palachian Mountains; on the rolling 

 countrysides of New England and the 

 rough, steep slopes of the Rocky Moun- 

 tain Front Range. In all of those places 

 and in many more, deterioration of 

 watershed conditions due to the re- 

 moval of forest cover has led to flashy, 

 destructive stream flow and greatly in- 

 creased soil erosion and sediment pro- 

 duction. Wherever such conditions 

 exist on land that is adapted to grow- 

 ing forest vegetation, the logical solu- 

 tion is to restore the forest by any 

 available means. 



But it is less widely recognized that 

 the same virtues of the forest that make 



Above: A watershed like this, a burned-over 

 area in the Rockies, requires a careful use. 

 8020(5? 4!) 89 



it valuable in the control of erosion 

 and floods may become disadvantages 

 in other areas, where such problems 

 are small but water shortages are acute. 



Water troubles with this different 

 aspect can be found on long belts of 

 high-altitude watershed land along the 

 big backbone of the Rockies and in the 

 upper areas of other mountain ranges : 

 Land that produces large volumes of 

 water and sends it down the mountain 

 canyons to spreading plains and arid 

 valleys below, places where almost every 

 available drop is consumed by cities, 

 towns, and irrigated farms. 



For many years the people of dry 

 areas like these throughout the West 

 have worried about their water sup- 

 plies. Water there is so precious that 

 it is bought and sold by the acre-foot 

 or even by the gallon; it is so greatly 

 in demand that in some places existing 

 legally established water rights exceed 

 the highest recorded annual flow in 

 the streams. 



Under such intense pressure for 

 water, naturally these people look to 

 the mountain watersheds that are the 



593 



