Effect On Water Resources
Hydrologists from the University of Colorado have investigated the impacts of beetle-infested forests on the water cycle, specifically, snow accumulation and melt. They concluded that dead forests will accumulate more snowpack as a result of thinner tree canopies and decreased snow sublimation. These thinned canopies also cause faster snow melt by allowing more sunlight through to the forest floor and lowering the snowpack albedo, as a result of needle litter on the snow surface. Augmented snowpack coupled with dead trees that no longer transpire will likely lead to more available water.
Read more about this topic: Mountain Pine Beetle
Famous quotes containing the words effect, water and/or resources:
“No being exists or can exist which is not related to space in some way. God is everywhere, created minds are somewhere, and body is in the space that it occupies; and whatever is neither everywhere nor anywhere does not exist. And hence it follows that space is an effect arising from the first existence of being, because when any being is postulated, space is postulated.”
—Isaac Newton (1642–1727)
“To get wealth and security by guile
Is like one who pours water into a pot of unbaked clay.”
—Tiruvalluvar (c. 5th century A.D.)
“The poor tread lightest on the earth. The higher our income, the more resources we control and the more havoc we wreak.”
—Paul Harrison (b. 1936)