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"After a century of degradation due to mining, logging, acidification, and grazing, the 130-km2 Copper Basin in southeastern Tennessee became the site of increasingly extensive and successful reforestation efforts.""Although not intended as such, the denudation and later reforestation of the Copper Basin can be regarded as a long-termexperiment from which much can be learned about the effects of these landscape changes on the rainfall runoff response of hillslopes.""Results of 54 rainfall simulation experiments ... demonstrate that hydrologic recovery of soils in the Copper Basin lags significantly behind the establishment of tree cover and the protection offered by vegetation against soil erosion"
e.g. rainfall simulator-infiltrometer to examine differences (forest parts of different ages) in rainfall runoff and soil detachment.
"The most immediate improvement brought by revegetation is to stabilize upland sediment." So here an almost direct influence (reduction) on soil erosion in the reforested can be seen.
<ul><li>"In spite of 50+ years of revegetation in the Copper Basin, soils in the historically denuded area still contain significantly less organic matter than forest soils outside the basin."</li><li>"Because of the extent and persistence of denudation, lag times to the hydrologic recovery of hillslopes in the Copper Basin may be unusually long."</li><li>"The Copper Basin clearly demonstrates that restoring the hydrologic function of seriously degraded soils is possible, but complex, costly, and slow."</li></ul>
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Harden, C. P., & Mathews, L. (2000). Rainfall response of degraded soil following reforestation in the Copper Basin, Tennessee, USA. <em>Environmental Management</em>, 26(2), 163-174.
The study was conducted at the Copper Basin in southeastern Tennessee, with an area of 130 square kilometers and even a small area extending into the U. S. state of Georgia.