Determining the potential retention of a forest catchment based on the CN parameter

Forests play one of the most important roles in the hydrological cycle; as a result, knowledge about the water relations in forest areas should be of great importance in the context of global change. In Poland, the level of groundwater in forest areas has been decreasing for several decades, which negatively affects forest stands. To prevent this, activities have been carried out to increase water resources. Therefore, there is a need to develop a method for prioritizing the locations of retention investment projects. While searching for simple methods to achieve this goal, it was assumed that retention facilities should be located first in the partial catchments with the greatest possible retention capacities. This value, which is called the potential retention of the catchment, can be calculated using the CN parameter, which is used in the soil conservation service–curve number (SCS–CN) method. The CN parameter contains information on the type of land cover, the type of soil, and the moisture content. The source of the obtained land-use data was the Corine Land Cover (CLC) database, which was developed by the European Environment Agency for the area of the European Union. The analyses were carried out on the forest catchment of the Łutownia River, which is located in the Białowieża Primeval Forest.