Valuing the benefits of forest restoration on enhancing hydropower and water supply in California's Sierra Nevada

Han Guo; Michael Goulden; Min Gon Chung; Charity Nyelele; Benis Egoh; Catherine Keske; Martha Conklin; Roger Bales

doi:10.1016/j.scitotenv.2023.162836

Valuing the benefits of forest restoration on enhancing hydropower and water supply in California's Sierra Nevada

Sci Total Environ. 2023 Jun 10:876:162836. doi: 10.1016/j.scitotenv.2023.162836. Epub 2023 Mar 15.

Authors

Han Guo¹, Michael Goulden², Min Gon Chung³, Charity Nyelele⁴, Benis Egoh², Catherine Keske⁵, Martha Conklin⁵, Roger Bales⁶

Affiliations

¹ Environmental Systems Graduate Group, University of California Merced, Merced, CA, USA. Electronic address: hguo6@ucmerced.edu.
² Department of Earth System Science, University of California Irvine, Irvine, CA, USA.
³ Department of Earth System Science, University of California Irvine, Irvine, CA, USA; Sierra Nevada Research Institute, University of California Merced, Merced, CA, USA.
⁴ Department of Environmental Sciences, University of Virginia, Charlottesville, VA, USA.
⁵ Environmental Systems Graduate Group, University of California Merced, Merced, CA, USA; Sierra Nevada Research Institute, University of California Merced, Merced, CA, USA.
⁶ Environmental Systems Graduate Group, University of California Merced, Merced, CA, USA; Sierra Nevada Research Institute, University of California Merced, Merced, CA, USA; Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, University of California Berkeley, Berkeley, CA, USA.

PMID: 36924953
DOI: 10.1016/j.scitotenv.2023.162836

Abstract

Forest restoration through mechanical thinning, prescribed burning, and other management actions is vital to improving forest resilience to fire and drought across the Western United States, and yields benefits that can be monetized, including improvements in water supply and hydropower. Using California's Sierra Nevada as a study area, we assess the water and energy benefits of forest-restoration projects. By using a scalable top-down approach to track annual evapotranspiration following forest disturbance, coupled with hydropower simulations that include energy-price information, and marginal prices for water sales, we project the potential economic benefits of hydropower and water sales accruing to water-rights holders. The results found that water-related benefits from strategically planned fuels-reduction treatments now being carried out can be sufficient to offset costs of management actions aimed at forest restoration, especially in the face of climate change. Our findings justified investments in restoring forests and reinforce the central role of water and hydropower providers in partnerships for management of source-water watersheds. Results also highlighted the importance of accurate, scalable data and tools from the hydrology and water-resources community.

Keywords: Ecosystem services; Forest restoration; Hydropower; Natural capital; Water supply.