The Impact of Tree Planting on Infiltration Dependent on Tree Proximity and Maturity at a Clay Site in Warwickshire, England

Nathaniel Rewell*, Craig Lashford, Matteo Rubinato, Matthew Blackett

*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

Abstract

Urbanisation and the replacement of previously vegetated areas with impermeable surfaces reduces the lag times of overland flow and increases peak flows to receiving watercourses; the magnitude of this will increase as a result of climate change. Tree planting is gaining momentum as a potential method of natural flood management (NFM) due to its ability to break up soil and increase infiltration and water storage. In this study, a 2.2 km2 clay-textured area in Warwickshire, England, planted with trees every year from 2006 to 2012 was sampled to investigate how infiltration varies dependent on season and tree proximity and maturity. Infiltration data was collected from 10 and 200 cm away from selected sample trees from November 2019 to August 2021 using a Mini Disk infiltrometer (MDI). The results show that mean infiltration is higher at the 10 cm proximity compared with the 200 cm proximity by 75.87% in winter and 25.19% in summer. Further to this, mean 10 cm infiltration is 192% higher in summer compared with winter, and mean 200 cm infiltration is 310% higher in summer compared with winter. There is little evidence to suggest a relationship between infiltration and tree maturity at the study site.
Original languageEnglish
Article number892
Number of pages15
JournalWater
Volume14
Issue number892
Early online date12 Mar 2022
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 12 Mar 2022

Bibliographical note

Copyright © 2022 by the authors. Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).

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