Received: 30 August 2017 Revised: 21 January 2018 Accepted: 28 February 2018 DOI: 10.1002/eco.1971 RESEARCH ARTICLE Overstorey evapotranspiration in a seasonally dry Mediterranean eucalypt forest: Response to groundwater and mining Craig Macfarlane1 | Andrew Grigg2 | Rod McGregor2 | Gary Ogden1 | Richard Silberstein3 1 CSIRO, 147 Underwood Avenue, Floreat, Western Australia 6014, Australia Abstract 2 Environmental Department, Alcoa of Groundwater levels in the northern jarrah forest have declined at rates up to Australia, PO Box 172, Pinjarra, Western 0.5 m year−1 owing to increased aridity in south‐western Australia in the last 40 years. Australia 6208, Australia The forest has also been mined and rehabilitated resulting in significant areas of 3 Centre of Ecosystem Management, School of Science, Edith Cowan University, Joondalup postmining forest. We tested the impact of declining groundwater levels and mining Campus, 270 Joondalup Drive, Joondalup, on evapotranspiration by jarrah forest overstorey. We hypothesized that trees in Western Australia 6027, Australia Correspondence jarrah forest are facultative phreatophytes (will use groundwater where available but Craig Macfarlane, CSIRO, 147 Underwood are not reliant on it) and water use per unit overstorey leaf area index (Los)of Avenue, Floreat, Western Australia 6014, Australia. postmining forest is the same as that of postharvest forest. We measured sapflow at Email:
[email protected] 7 sites in the northern jarrah forest and measured rainfall interception by the canopy at 9 sites. Stemflow was measured at 3 sites. Shallow depth to groundwater was asso- ciated with a larger ratio of transpiration per unit leaf area (Eos/Los), but there was little difference in Eos/Los between postmining and postharvest jarrah forest.