Evaluation And Management On Forest Water Conservation In Simian Mountains, Chongqing, China

Scientific forest evaluation and systematic forest management strategies are the guarantee of sustainable forest development. Based on water conservation mechanism of different forest, this article proposed management practices of forest water conservation in Simian Mountains by comparing the analysis results of different evaluation methods to identify the volume and value of water resources conserved by forests.The results indicated as follows:Firstly, the water balance method was more accurate than other methods on estimating the volume of water conserved by forests. In Simian Mountains, water resource in unit areas conserved by broad-leaved forest was 15%higher than the bamboo and coniferous forests. The annual volume of water conserved by forests was 1.373×108 t/a and the volume might be up to 1.681×108 t/a in wet years. Secondly, the price of water conserved by forests, which was evaluated with the full cost methods, was 1.64-2.23 yuan/t. The price could reflect the socio-economic development of the research area accurately and reasonably. Thirdly, forest water conservation evaluation results indicated the value of water conserved by forests was 1.685-3.158×108 yuan/a in Simian Mountains from 2003 to 2008. Precipitation conditions, cost prices and the income levels of residents were the major factors that influenced the value of the water conserved by forest.As water conservation forests has great socio-economic benefits, it is suggested to build water conservation forests systems dominated with broad-leaved trees and transform coniferous forests and other low water conservation functions forests into water conservation forests based on rational planning of forest function zone. The management practices such as changing structure of agricultural production, utilizing hydropower and developing tourism, could take advantage of the ecological services function of forest ecosystem, and realize the value of water conservation.