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On July 1, 1921, the U.S. Department of
Agriculture established the Appalachian Forest Experiment Station (now called
the Southern
Research Station) in Asheville, NC. When active research began in 1926, the
program included silviculture, reforestation, and management of forests, as well
as forest protection, forest economics, and stream flow and erosion control.
At that time, eastern forests were extensively
grazed by livestock. Steep mountain land was cleared and planted with corn.
Logging was done by sub-contractors who had little regard for erosion from roads
and skid trails. Erosion on worn out and abandoned land in the Southeast was
region wide. Such land was not wanted by private individuals and could be bought
for delinquent taxes. At the time, the rank and file of professional foresters
knew little about forest effects on climate and soil. They were unaware of such
stream flow variables as total water yield, maximum peak discharge, minimum flow
dependability, or sediment loading.
Fortunately, E.N. Munns, of the USDA Forest
Service Branch of Research, had observed and written about land erosion in
California prior to his assignment to Washington. Supported by E.H. Clapp, then
Chief of Forest Research, Munns became an effective advocate of better land use
and of more in-depth research into influences of forests on water yield. In the
mid-1920's, the Branch of Research requested a Civil Service examination for
ecologists with Ph.D. degrees and selected two applicants. One of them, Charles
R. Hursh, began work at the Appalachian Station in 1926 and directed the
Stations Division of Forest Influences until his retirement in 1954. Some of the
earliest work dealt with erosion control and methods of stabilizing soil on
road-banks and abandoned agricultural land, and with the study of forest humus
types of the region. At the Bent Creek Experimental Forest near Asheville, plots
were established in 1932 to study surface runoff from five representative types
of forested or agriculture cover, and an infiltrometer was first used
successfully with artificial rainfall. These early studies led to an examination
of water movement through the soil profile and to the need for complete
watershed instrumentation to provide continuous measurements of stream flow and
precipitation.
Based on this need, Hursh sought suitable areas
conducting comprehensive studies on watershed management. John Byrne, Forest
Supervisor of the Nantahala National Forest, suggested a number of possible
sites, and the Coweeta drainage basin near Franklin, NC, was finally selected as
the most suitable. In 1933, 3,900 acres (later increased to 5,750 acres) of the
Nantahala National Forest were set aside as the Coweeta Experimental Forest.
Station Director C.L. Forsling later issued instructions that no manipulations
of the forest cover were to take place at Coweeta until after a period of
standardization of the gaged watersheds. He assigned full responsibility for
administration of the Coweeta basin to the Division of Forest Influences.
Thus, the stage was set for a greatly expanded
program in watershed management research. Programs of the Civilian Conservation
Corps and the Public Works Administration during the Great Depression years
provided the manpower and funds for expansion of research activities. An
intensive program of weir construction began in 1934 along with a network of 56
standard rain gages, numerous ground-water wells, and meteorological stations.
By 1939, calibration of watersheds at Coweeta
was far enough along on some catchments to begin treatments, and a period of
experimentation began. Since then, scientists have conducted a variety of
watershed experiments at Coweeta. Early studies documented the harmful effects
on soil and water resources by mountain farming, woodland grazing, and
unrestricted logging. These early land-use demonstrations were publicized in the
highly successful film "Waters of Coweeta." Scientists designed and
implemented water-yield experiments to measure effects on stream flow of
complete or partial forest cuttings and conversion from one type of cover to
another. The knowledge gained in these early experiments was the basis for a
pilot test of intensive multi-resource management of Southern Appalachian
forests and has provided guidelines for watershed management and best management
practice standards on public and private lands alike. More recent experiments
utilizing cable logging methods and advanced forest road designs have
demonstrated improved methods for managing steep mountain lands to minimize
damage to soil and water.
Coweeta's early emphasis on how land management
practices affect the hydrologic cycle has evolved into a broader
interdisciplinary effort that couples hydrology within an ecosystem context. The
culmination of the first 50 years of research at Coweeta was synthesized at a
1984 Symposium at the University of Georgia and later published in a book
entitled "Forest Hydrology and Ecology at Coweeta." Research combines short-term (5 years or less)
with long-term (decades) studies on the responses of forested watersheds to
various kinds of natural and human-induced disturbances. Although much of the
research takes place within the Coweeta basin, some studied are installed in
other forest ecosystems in the region. current topics of emphasis include
continuing analyses of long-term hydrology, nutrient cycling, and productivity
responses to management practices and natural disturbances (drought, flood,
insects); assessment of prescribed burning effects on the forest environment;
and interdisciplinary, inter-institutional implementation of Ecosystem
Management on the national forests; effects of climatic change on productivity
for the entire South; impacts of atmospheric deposition on forest processes and
ecosystem; the cumulative effects of land use practices on water quality;
physiological studies of forest carbon balance and competition; and
biodiversity.
Process-level studies on Coweeta's undisturbed
watersheds provide the control for evaluating ecosystem responses to
disturbances. Our goal has been to ingrate individual research efforts into
holistic concept of watershed response across a range of time and space scales.
The research program encompasses a broad array
of cooperative studies that averages about 30 projects annually with about 45
graduate students and 40 senior investigators. These studies support the RWU
mission and greatly expand the scpe and depth of scientific effort at Coweeta.
The centerpiece of the cooperative effort is the Long-Term Ecological Research (LTER)
Program with the University of Georgia, begun in 1980 and funded through the
National Science Foundation (NSF).
Participation in the LTER network evolved from earlier cooperative ecosystem
studies between Coweeta and the University. |
