Conclusions

demonstrate the important hydrologic impacts of the conversion and preservation of TCMF. The pasture-dominated catchment showed a lower baseflow compared to the primary forest, regardless of its similar rainfall, and it also presented a fivefold increase in peak discharge response. These results suggest that 40 years of high intensity pasture management can deteriorate the hydraulic properties of volcanic soils, mainly in terms of infiltration capacity reduction.
This work indicates that despite the potential changes in the water and energy balance due to forest conversion to shade coffee alternatives, the capacity to sustain baseflow in shaded coffee dominated micro-catchments is largely preserved through the end of the dry season. It was also found that shade coffee systems can preserve the soil capacity to modulate peak flows during storms. We found that daily streamflow regimes of an intermediate age forest more closely resembled a primary forest. However, storm runoff event responses across all the forested catchments were not statistically different. Older forests were associated with better soil conditions, particularly higher soil infiltration capacity and thus greater recharge of subsurface water storages. In conclusion, our results showed the importance of protecting naturally regenerating forest to promote hydrologic services.
The major implications of our findings for managers of payments for watershed services and other programs promoting conservation of hydrologic services are: 1) shade coffee may provide similar hydrologic services to forests in these types of programs, but more work on coffee farms with different management is needed to support this hypothesis; 2) higher conservation priority should be given to mature and older regenerating TMCF, particularly those located at higher elevations; and 3) conversion to pasture should be avoided. However, more research is needed to better understand the energy and mass dynamics on regenerating TMCF across a wider range of elevations and forest ages.