How Thick Forests Can Reduce Snowpack

Erin Ross, OPB December 19 2018

Much of the Willamette Valley’s water arrives in the winter as snow in the forested Cascade mountains. New research shows that the ways we manage those forests can influence how much water flows into rivers during the spring and summer melt.

Anne Nolin, a professor at the University of Nevada, Reno, is part of a group of researchers modeling the Willamette Valley’s watershed. They were interested in the ways precipitation travels from where it falls in the Cascade Mountains down to urban centers in the lower Willamette Valley.

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