18
Agnes Hereter and Juan Rafael Sanchez
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Fig. 2.2. Study sites in La Castanya (Montseny). Contour lines at 20-m intervals
catchment was gaged in 1983 for measuring catchment budgets of water and
nutrients in holm oak forest. The whole Torrent de la Mina catchment, the
lower half of which is covered by holm oak, was gaged for the same purpose
in 1990. A further catchment (TM5) in the upper reaches of the Torrent de la
Mina catchment was also gaged (Belillas and Roda 1991), but since it is covered by heathlands and grasslands it will not be dealt with in this book.
A 0.23-ha forest plot near the outlet of the Torrent de la Mina catchment
was the site of our earlier studies on biomass, production, and nutrient cycling in the late 1970s and early 1980s. This plot, thereafter referred to as the
permanent plot, was representative of holm oak stands growing in high
quality sites. In 1985 a network of 81 154-m 2 plots was systematically laid out