This document proposes a meta-modeling framework to assess the water regulatory services provided by forests in Uttarakhand, India. It involves developing a simulation model called SMUFH to model forest hydrology processes and quantify services under different forest cover scenarios. Experimental data on forest hydrology would be collected and used to parameterize and validate the SMUFH model. The model would then simulate changes in hydrological outputs like soil moisture and groundwater recharge for varying levels of forest cover to estimate economic value of water regulation services. The framework is meant to provide a scientific basis for assessing impacts of forest management practices on hydrological regime.

1. ASSESSING WATER REGULATORY
SERVICES PROVIDED BY FORESTS OF
UTTARAKHAND: PROPOSED METAMODELLING FRAMEWORK
*Manoj
Kumar1, MP Singh1, Hukum Singh1, Peter A Khaiter2
1Climate
Change & Forest Influence Division
Forest Research Institute
PO : New Forest, Dehradun – 248 006, India
2School
of Information Technology, The Faculty of Liberal Arts and
Professional Studies, York University, TEL Building # 3044, 4700 Keele
Street, Toronto, Ontario M3J 1P3, Canada
*Email: manojfri@gmail.com, kumarmanoj@icfre.org

2. (Source: Earth Economics 2013)
Water Regulatory Services by Forests
 Role of land cover in regulating runoff and river
discharge: Provides natural irrigation, drainage,
channel flow regulation, and navigable transportation
 Filtering, retention and storage of fresh water:
Provision of water for consumptive use (both quality
& quantity)

3. (Source: NPV Report , MoEF, 2013)
Forest goods and services in few studies in India
2013
3

4. Water Regulatory Services
 The 2006 NPV Expert Committee refers to the value of
watershed services which included the value of soil
conservation along with hydrological services from secondary
site-specific studies. (NPV Expert Committee Report, MoEF,
govt. of India, 2013)
 The review report of NPV suggests that the methodology for
valuation of water regulatory services from forests is still
evolving

5. Water Regulatory Services
The data for average weight of soil per hectare was obtained from
the Forest Inventory data of FSI (FSI 2013). Conservatively
assuming that the in absence of forests, the entire soil will take 100
years to erode, annual soil erosion rates have been estimated have
for all VDF category of all forest type groups. Recognizing the fact
that the capacity of forests to prevent soil erosion depends on a
significant extent to the canopy of forest cover through which
precipitation is intercepted , relative weights for different canopy
density classes have been calculated to estimate their ability to
avoid soil erosion. Based on these relative weights, estimate of soil
erosion prevented has been calculated for the remaining forest
canopy density classes. The quantity of annual soil erosion
prevented by forests is thus estimated for all forest type groups and
canopy cover density classes.

6. Water Regulatory Services
 While site-specific estimates for run-off rates as a percentage of
precipitation doesn’t exist for the different forest canopy cover
density classes.
 On account of lack of any information to provide estimates for
different forest type groups or canopy cover density classes, the
study by NPV expert committee proposed to use a blanket
estimate of Rs. 2950/ha/year as the economic value of water
purification services for all forest type groups and canopy
cover density classes.

7. Continued…
ORIGIN AND NEED OF THE PROPOSAL
 Updated reviews suggests removal of forest cover results in
higher total stramflow. (Bosch and Hewlett, 1982, Grip,
Fritsch and Bruijnzeel, 2005). These observation may often
mislead that removing forest will augment the water supply.
 Many other services provided by forests viz. soil erosion
control, improved water quality Carbon fixation, and the
continuous flow of other forest products suggest for
estimating these services more scientifically with due care.
 Role of forests in regulating the global water cycle and global
climate can never be overlooked.
7

8. Continued…
Origin and need of the proposal
 To ensure optimum water quality we need some framework
for its assessment based on actual field observation through
site specific experimental set up and developing suitable
model for simulation under assumed scenarios.
 Forest management in the watershed catchments need
scientific basis rather than any misperception.
 Different associated services are bound to vary with the
percent removal of the forests, so the question lies what is the
optimal forest cover for a sustained yield of different services?
 We propose a meta-modelling framework for the assessment
of water regulatory services provided by forests of
Uttarakhand.
8

9. Continued…
Origin and need of the proposal
 Uttarakhand is an Indian State lying in the Himalayan
topography. Most of its area, covering almost more than
ninety percent, is hilly terrain with nearly sixty five percentforest cover. People of the region and majority of downstream
population are dependent upon the surface and subsurface
waters retained and transformed by the regional forests.
Therefore, the surface and sub-surface water flows and their
quality, formed on the forested watersheds of the State, need
to be monitored for addressing various forest management
practices and their associated impacts upon the hydrological
regime.

10. Continued…
Origin and need of the proposal
 There have been several studies undertaken world-wide for
measuring the regulatory services provided by forests on the
watershed areas. However, every forest service varies from
region to region and thus it may not be justifiable to
mechanically transfer the values received in those studies onto
the forests of Uttarakhand. The attempts to evaluate the various
services, including water regulatory services of Uttarakhand,
have often been made by simply multiplying the dollar values
of unit forest area by the total forest cover area of the region.
 We propose a meta-modelling framework for the assessment of
water regulatory services provided by forests of Uttarakhand.

11. Water Regulatory Services
Theoretical understanding of hydrological processes and resulting
water balance for the forests of Uttarakhand can be achieved by
conducting experimental observations on long- term basis for
different forest types of the State. Monitoring of water flow to
calculate crown interception, evaporation from snow and water,
snowmelt, water release from snow, freezing and thawing of soilgrounds, infiltration, formation of all kinds of runoff, and
transpiration together with the monitoring of water quality is
suggested for different kinds of forest cover based upon species,
crown density, area and age class.

12. Meta modelling framework
Simulation and Modelling
Economic Assessment
Management/Control

13. Conceptual framework for simulating water flow

14. Methodological Approach
 In order to quantify the water regulatory services provided by
forests of Uttarakhand, it is necessary to compare the components
of the water balance in an experimental paired watershed.
 However, to compare the results it will require felling of trees to
compare the results for different densities of forests over a time,
often a very long duration.
 To overcome these methodological difficulties, simulation
modelling approach will be adopted. Simulation will be done for
the forests of Uttarakhand after obtaining the desired
experimental values; for the simulation run, through a set of
experimental monitoring stations under different forest stands for
a considerable period.

15. Simulation Model for Uttarakhand Forest Hydrology
Simulation Model for Uttarakhand Forest Hydrology (SMUFH)
of the processes of water transformation in a forested watershed
simulates the processes of forest hydrology, and calculates crown
interception, evaporation from snow and water, snowmelt, water
release from snow, freezing and thawing of soil-grounds, infiltration,
formation of all kinds of runoff, and transpiration. The model
simulates the values of the water balance components, and provides
a quantitative assessment of the hydrological service of the forest.
The SMUFH represents the distribution of precipitation using the
following water balance equation:
PR = EVC + EVF + EVS + QSUR + QSUB + TR + ∆SM + QGR

16. Continued…
Simulation Model for Uttarakhand Forest Hydrology
Where,
PR = Precipitation
EVC, EVF, & EVS = Evaporation from canopy, floor and soil
respectively
QSUR, QSUB = Surface and Subsurface fluxes, respectively
TR = Transpiration
ΔSM = Variation of soil moisture content
QGR = Water recharge to the groundwater table

17. Continued…
Simulation Model for Uttarakhand Forest Hydrology
The modelling of water transformation in the SMUFH will be
calculated at three levels (or hydrological niches as proposed by
Voronkov, 1988): 1) Tree crown, 2) Forest floor, and 3) Soil layer of
a given thickness, Z. The balance condition should obviously be
satisfied for each of the hydrological niches:
dM
dt
j
INC
i
j
OUT
i
k
j
k

18. Continued…
Simulation Model for Uttarakhand Forest Hydrology
Where j denotes a hydrologic niche (j = 1, 2, 3); Wj is the water
contents in the jth hydrological niche; t is the time variable;
and
are the i th incoming water balance item and
k th out coming water balance item, respectively, for the jth
hydrological niche.

19. Continued…
Simulation Model for Uttarakhand Forest Hydrology
In order to quantitatively assess the hydrological service of forest,
it must be formally defined. It could be expressed through the
positive influence of forest vegetation on both the richness of
stream flows and the soil moisture content. Given that
traditionally in hydrology, all items from the water balance are
considered as positive (or useful) ones, except for losses to
evapotranspiration and surface runoff, a formalization of the
notion of the hydrological service of a forest and its estimation
ΔQUSE was proposed (Khaiter, 1993) in the form of the
following expression:
T
QUSE
SM
t
SM
o
(t )
f
(t )
1
o
Q SUB ( t )
o
f
Q SUB ( t )
Q GR ( t )
f
Q GR ( t )

20. Continued…
Simulation Model for Uttarakhand Forest Hydrology
The computer experiments with the SMUFH will be carried out for
the watersheds representing different forest tree stands and soil
types. The computed estimate of the hydrological service in this
simulation for watersheds will be added to obtain the total
hydrological services provided by forests of Uttarakhand. Two
extreme situations (i.e. forested vs. open watershed) will be
modelled and compared in the simulations. In terms of the forestmanagement practices, such a transformation corresponds to
complete clear cutting. Obviously, anthropogenic activities of forest
management will lead to any intermediate scenarios.

21. Continued…
Simulation Model for Uttarakhand Forest Hydrology
Forest management interventions will be considered for the
change in soil density; SD, and percent of forested area, F% (i.e.,
SD = SD (u(t)) and F% = F% (u(t)). These two factors will be
used in the building of the response surface, approximating the
data generated by simulation experiments. As a result, the
response function will be obtained to estimate the hydrological
service provided by forests of Uttarakhand.

22. Continued…
Recommendations
Forest ecosystems generate various services and benefits which are
altered with intervention of forest management practices. For
various practical needs of sustainable management, it is important to
predict and quantify the possible changes in the ecosystem services
such as hydrological regime of a given watershed as a result of
anthropogenic activities. Model will help to estimate the ecosystem
services under different forest management scenarios in advance
before actually perturbing the forests. We have discussed the
estimation of hydrological regulatory services through simulation
model. Similar models are obviously needed to quantify all other
forest ecosystem services and goods which can be applied for
addressing sustainable forest management practices.

23. THANK YOU