Increasing demands for timber and biomass production from European forests have raised concerns about the sustainability of harvesting practices, since forest nutrient stocks have decreased due to enhanced leaching of base cations driven by soil acidification from elevated nitrogen (N) and sulfur (S) deposition. We quantified the impact of three harvest intensities—high-thinning (also known as crown thinning; ∼20 % basal area removal), shelterwood (∼80 %), and clearcut (100 %)—, two harvest methods (stem-only and whole-tree harvest), and soil preparation (shallow mulching and no mulching) on post-harvest nutrient leaching in beech, Douglas fir, and Scots pine stands in the Netherlands, compared to unharvested control plots. Leaching was quantified by combining monthly dissolved nutrient measurements over a full year with a mechanistic model simulating monthly water fluxes.
Leaching of macronutrients in unharvested control plots was generally higher in Douglas fir than in Scots pine and beech. Clearcutting, and to a lesser extent shelterwood harvesting, strongly increased dissolved nutrient concentrations, especially nitrate (NO3), indicating rapid mobilization of large N stocks and, to a lesser extent, S stocks. These increases were associated with accelerated soil acidification, induced by losses of base cations (calcium [Ca], magnesium [Mg] and potassium [K]) and acid cations (aluminum [Al], iron [Fe] and manganese [Mn]). Thinning, harvest method, and shallow mulching had minimal or negligible effects on post-harvest leaching, underscoring the potential of low-intensity harvests for sustainable forest use with low nutrient losses. Our study shows that high harvest intensity strongly accelerates nutrient leaching within one year after harvest, but the long-term impacts over a rotation period remain to be explored.
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