According to various climate change prediction scenarios, the drought will occur more frequently in temperate forests including Korea in the future. In fact, the average annual precipitation of Gyeonggi-do, Korea has decreased by 34% since 2014 to 2017, compared with the average precipitation of the past 30 years. This persistent drought is expected to affect the growth of trees. The purpose of this study is to investigate if drought affect on the growth of different tree species using the diameter growth band installed from 2012. The growth of two conifer (Pinus koraiensis, Abies holophylla), three Quercus spp (Q. aliena, Q. variabilis, Q. serrata) and two Carpinus spp (C. laxiflora, C. cordata) were investigated at Mt. Taehwa and Gwangneung National Arboretum. In addition, in the P. koraiensis forests of Mt. Taehwa, thinning operation was carried out with 20% and 40% intensity of the number of trees in the experimental area in 2012.
Results/Conclusions
In the year 2014, the year with significant decrease in precipitation, Q. aliena, Q. variabilis and C. cordata showed vigorous annual growth rate, and thereafter, the growth rate decreased with continuous drought. The pine trees showed the lowest growth in 2014 when the drought started, but the growth rate also recovered as the precipitation recovered. There was no significant relationship between growth rate and annual precipitation for of A. holophylla, Q. aliena and C. laxiflora. In addition, thinning treatment of P. koraiensis showed no significant difference in the growth rate under drought depending on their thinning intensities.