Growing demands to feed more than 7 billion people and provide energy, water, wood and other services, under the threat of climate change, are among the greatest challenges of the 21st century. The sustainable development goals (SDGs) chart a course for meeting this challenge. Forests and agroforestry systems provide substantial economic, environmental and social values. In many regions of the world, water and soil related services (i.e. flood alleviation and erosion control, provision of enough and clean drinking water) are of particular importance. Increasing efforts have been directed towards strengthening water regulation and soil protection, but mostly in an isolated way and many failed to pay adequate attention to unintended adverse effects on other services. Assessments that lack a holistic perspective on ecosystem services can easily produce land use recommendations that fail to maximise the total value of ecosystems and therefore fall short of optimally contributing to sustainable development. Thus, a comprehensive assessment and management of water and soil related services considering all other services provided by multifunctional land use systems across multiple scales are necessary. This requires a full understanding of their complex interrelations, and the practical techniques to design forest/tree-based landscapes with proper regulation of the structure of forest and agroforestry ecosystems for getting the greatest benefits.