Jiaojun Zhu;Liang Yu;Tianle Xu;Xiaohua Wei;Kai Yan

University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, People’s Republic of China;CAS Key Laboratory of Forest Ecology and Management, Institute of Applied Ecology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Shenyang, People’s Republic of Chin;CAS Key Laboratory of Forest Ecology and Management, Institute of Applied Ecology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Shenyang, People’s Republic of China;Department of Earth and Environmental Sciences, University of British Columbia (Okanagan Campus), Kelowna, Canada

Forested catchments;Secondary forests;Plantations;Water quality;TEMPERATE SECONDARY FOREST;EASTERN LIAONING PROVINCE;MONTANE REGIONS;LITTER DECOMPOSITION;CHEMICAL-PROPERTIES;THROUGHFALL;CHEMISTRY;STEMFLOW;IMPACT;FLOO

In the headwater catchments of the Hun River, Northeast China, secondary forests (SF) have been replaced by plantations since the 1960s. Concern has been growing over this loss and the decline in water quality caused by the plantations. To test the effects of plantations on water quality, we selected two separate catchments covered by SF and Pinus koraiensis plantations (KP) to monitor physical and chemical properties of various hydrological variables including throughfall, stemflow, through-litterfall and runoff (flowing out of outlets of the catchments). The physical properties of water declined after water flowed through the two catchments as compared with rainwater. The pH of runoff in both catchments also dramatically decreased. The concentrations of Cl-, NO3- and NH4+ in the runoff from the two catchments were similar (concentrations of Cl- and NH4+ in both catchments were similar to those in rainwater). Total P concentration in runoff of the SF catchment was higher than that of the KP catchment (P concentrations in both catchments were also higher than in rainwater) because P concentrations in litter and soil of the SF catchment were higher than those in the KP catchment. In summary, the rainwater became acidic in both catchments, but the responses of most water quality variables were similar in the two catchments, suggesting that appropriate ratios of KP in SF are feasible for secondary forest recovery and for preserving water quality (KP did not cause a decline in quality) in the headstream regions in Northeast of China.