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This study quantifies the amount of water withdrawn from the Luqillo Experimental Forest (LEF) in 2004. Spatially averaged mean monthly water budgets were generated for watersheds draining the LEF by combining long-term data from various government agencies with estimated extraction data. Results suggest that, on a typical day, 70 percent of water generated within the forest is diverted before reaching the ocean. This is up from an estimated 54 percent in 1994. Analysis showed that up to 63 percent of average monthly stream runoff is diverted from individual watersheds during drier months. Watersheds with large water intakes have the most dramatic decrease in streamflow, particularly the Río Espiritu Santo watershed, where 82 percent of median flow is diverted.
USDA Forest Service Experimental Forests and Ranges (EFRs) are scientific treasures, providing secure, protected research sites where complex and diverse ecological processes are studied over the long term. This book offers several examples of the dynamic interactions among questions of public concern or policy, EFR research, and natural resource management practices and policies. Often, trends observed – or expected -- in the early years of a research program are contradicted or confounded as the research record extends over decades. The EFRs are among the few areas in the US where such long-term research has been carried out by teams of scientists. Changes in society’s needs and values can also redirect research programs. Each chapter of this book reflects the interplay between the ecological results that emerge from a long-term research project and the social forces that influence questions asked and resources invested in ecological research. While these stories include summaries and syntheses of traditional research results, they offer a distinctly new perspective, a larger and more complete picture than that provided by a more typical 5-year study. They also provide examples of long-term research on EFRs that have provided answers for questions not even imagined at the time the study was installed.