Abstract
Water-oriented Forest Management (WOFM) aims to adapt the forest to water availability by means of affecting forest structure
and density. Regions under water scarcity situations, such as the Mediterranean, might require WOFM to optimize the hydrological
cycle under normal and future global change conditions. The present study uses the process based model BIOME-BGC to
predict the effects of WOFM in a Mediterranean Aleppo pine plantation. At the same time, the present work pretends to make
easier the model application to forest managers. To that end, the model is slightly modifi ed where canopy average specifi c leaf
area and canopy water interception coeffi cient are both introduced as a function of forest coverage. Then, the model is calibrated
and validated using a year sapfl ow, soil moisture, and throughfall fi eld data from three forest covers (85 to 26%). Calibration and
validation show an acceptable accuracy, whose NashSutcliffe ranges between 0.390.76 and 0.3169, respectively. The model
is fi nally applied to analyze and predict the need of forest management in a Mediterranean forest. The application shows an
optimization of the hydrological cycle that establishes a new equilibrium between blue and green water. The new scenario
signifi cantly reduces water interception and transpiration and increases runoff and percolation.
