Valuing the benefits of forest restoration on enhancing hydropower and water supply in California's Sierra Nevada

Forest restoration through mechanical thinning, prescribed burning, and other management actions is vital to improving forest resilience to fire and drought across the Western United States, and yields benefits that can be monetized, including improvements in water supply and hydropower. Using California's Sierra Nevada as a study area, we assess the water and energy benefits of forest-restoration projects. By using a scalable top-down approach to track annual evapotranspiration following forest disturbance, coupled with hydropower simulations that include energy-price information, and marginal prices for water sales, we project the potential economic benefits of hydropower and water sales accruing to water-rights holders. The results found that water-related benefits from strategically planned fuels-reduction treatments now being carried out can be sufficient to offset costs of management actions aimed at forest restoration, especially in the face of cli-mate change. Our findings justified investments in restoring forests and reinforce the central role of water and hydro-power providers in partnerships for management of source-water watersheds. Results also highlighted the importance of accurate, scalable data and tools from the hydrology and water-resources community.

Automated summary

Forest restoration is vital for increasing forest resilience to fire and drought in the Western United States. A study in California's Sierra Nevada assessed the economic benefits of such projects, including improvements in water supply and hydropower. The results found that water-related benefits can offset the costs of management actions aimed at forest restoration, especially in the face of climate change, supporting investments in restoring forests and highlighting the importance of accurate data and tools from the water-resources community.