Addressing soil protection concerns in forest ecosystem management under climate change

Background Climate change may strongly influence soil erosion risk, namely through variations in the precipitation pattern. Forests may contribute to mitigate the impacts of climate change on soil erosion and forest managers are thus challenged by the need to define strategies that may protect the soil while addressing the demand for other ecosystem services. Our emphasis is on the development of an approach to assess the impact of silvicultural practices and forest management models on soil erosion risks under climate change. Specifically, we consider the annual variation of the cover-management factor (C) in the Revised Universal Soil Loss Equation over a range of alternative forest management models to estimate the corresponding annual soil losses, under both current and changing climate conditions. We report and discuss results of an application of this approach to a forest area in Northwestern Portugal where erosion control is the most relevant water-related ecosystem service. Results Local climate change scenarios will contribute to water erosion processes, mostly by rainfall erosivity increase. Different forest management models provide varying levels of soil protection by trees, resulting in distinct soil loss potential. Conclusions Results confirm the suitability of the proposed approach to address soil erosion concerns in forest management planning. This approach may help foresters assess management models and the corresponding silvicultural practices according to the water-related services they provide.