Welcome to Uptake
Welcome to the first issue of Uptake: an e-newsletter
about forest management, water quantity and quality research in the
CRC for Forestry.
In this article, Don White,
leader of Research Project 4.1 'Water quantity and quality',
explains what Uptake is all about ...
[read more]
Meet some of our research fellows and students
In this article, meet
Hugh Smith, a research fellow at the University
of Melbourne, whose work includes measuring and modelling post-fire
erosion processes within forest catchments ... 
Jane Cawson (right), a PhD student
investigating the effects of prescribed fire on water quality
...
and ...
Sandra Hawthorne (left), who is investigating
the long-term impact of forest thinning on water yield in her PhD
studies at the University of Melbourne ...
[read more]
Forest management and water quality - brief update from the
Melbourne team
 At the
University of Melbourne, Pat Lane and the team have been working
hard on field work and data analysis on a number of fronts. They
have promised to provide some detailed results in our next issue of
Uptake on the effects of prescribed fire and thinning on
water outcomes, but here is a brief update on recent activity and
progress so far ...
[read more]
Plantation management in riparian zones
 Research to
determine the effects on water quality of plantation establishment
in a stream-side buffer will offer regulators and NRM managers
better information about the environmental costs and benefits of
this practice. Since August this year, the operations associated
with a new plantation in a stream-side buffer in one of a pair of
catchments at Willow Bend Farm (near Cygnet, Tasmania) have not
increased turbidity ...
[read
more]
Update from WA on trees and saline groundwater systems
 In
this article, Stuart Crombie (a CRC Research Fellow based in the
Forest Products Commission of WA) gives an update on research
investigating uptake by trees of water from saline groundwater
systems that have risen since land clearing. These water tables are
now discharging to the surface in large areas of valleys and other
low-lying areas where they cause salinity ...
[read
more]
Towards water-use-efficient plantations
 The
growth of well-managed plantations in southern Australia is largely
determined by available water. The National Water Initiative
compels state water planners to account for water use by new
plantations. For plantation managers and water planners alike, it
is crucial that we develop strategies for improving the water use
efficiency of our wood production systems.
Across the CRC for Forestry we are tackling this issue on a
number of fronts:
- Quantifying the effect of plantation management on the amount
of water needed to produce a m3 of wood.
- Asking whether increases in growth rate due
to genetic improvement, are due to chages in water use
effciency or faster water uptake.
- Developing catchment scale models of plantation water use
efficiency.
[
read more]
Contact
If you have any observations, comments, questions or
suggestions, please feel free to contact the Uptake
editor, Dr
Don White, directly. We hope you enjoyed this first issue of
Uptake.
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