Forest Harvesting and Water Management

Forest harvesting affects water management. Total water yield, flow regime and water quality are affected. Usually, in Western Canada, these effects — whether for good or ill — are accidental and are not taken into consideration in management. This is at least partly due to resource management people being resource oriented (technocentric) rather than society oriented (democentric) in their attitudes. Forest harvesting-water management interactions represent a technical problem of ultimate social importance. To cope with this problem requires coordination of resource uses, improved communication and administrative organization, more democentricity, expanded research into socio-economic factors, more attention to long-term environmental goals, examination of land tenure systems, more land use planning, re-orientation of resource management education, a broadening of social conceptual awareness, and increased professional staffing.