Water security is key to achieving the United Nations' Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Yet, increasingly the world is facing water shortages, and an estimated four billion people do not have sufficient access to safe and reliable water. The link between forests and climate is regularly considered in decision-making, whereas that between forests and water remains under-represented.  This report entitled "Forest and Water on a Changing Planet: Vulnerability, Adaptation and Governance Opportunities" constitutes the most comprehensive systematic scientific syntheses on the interactions between forests and water on the global level to date. Presenting the results of the sixth...

We are at a crossroads in time and history that can no longer be avoided. The threats and challenges posed by rapid population growth, climate change and the massive anthropogenic transformations of the terrestrial landscape (Alkama and Cescatti, 2016; Steffen et al., 2015b; Watson et al., 2018, 2016), especially where forests, water and their interaction are concerned, require a far more rapid response to and resolution of this debate than has hitherto been possible. The demand-side, catchment-centric approach to forest and water management is occasionally used as a tool to argue that increasing forest cover can only diminish...

The  document  provides  a  country-by-country  summary  of  the  current  state  of  knowledge  on  the  relationship  between  forest  management  and  water  resources.  Based  on  available  research  publications,  the  Editor-in-Chief  of  this  document  contacted  local  scientists  from  countries  where  the impact of forest management on water resources is an issue, inviting them to submit a chapter. 

This informative policy brief developed by WeForest and partners consolidates new scientific research on the forest-water-climate relationship. The new research reveals that five forest processes are more important than previously thought, and that management to support them can result in short and long-term benefits: forests promote precipitation; trees and forests are natural cooling systems; forests generate air and moisture flows; trees and forests can improve groundwater recharge; forests can moderate flooding.

There is now a solid body of scientific information for understanding and interpreting the relationships between forests and water in both temperate and tropical regions. However, there is also a parallel and deeply entrenched “popular narrative” that often runs counter to the consensus views of the forest hydrology scientific community. The purpose of this report is to: summarize the scientific consensus on the hydrological impacts of forest management in relation to the popular narrative; propose recommendations to community forestry policymakers and practitioners; and propose recommendations to the Center for People and Forests...