Water – drinkable, usable water – is likely to be one of the most limiting resources in the future, given the growing global population, the high water demand of most agricultural production systems, and the confounding effects of climate change. We need to manage water wisely – efficiently, cost-effectively and equitably – if we are to avoid the calamity of a lack of usable water supply. Forested watersheds provide an estimated 75 percent of the world’s accessible freshwater resources, on which more than half the Earth’s people depend for domestic, agricultural, industrial and environmental purposes. Forests therefore, are vital natural infrastructure, and their management can provide “nature-based solutions” for a range of water-related societal challenges. This edition of Unasylva explores that potential.
Many people worldwide lack adequate access to clean water to meet basic needs, and many important economic activities, such as energy production and agriculture, also require water. Climate change is likely to aggravate water stress. As temperatures rise, ecosystems and the human, plant, and animal communities that depend on them will need more water to maintain their health and to thrive. Forests and trees are integral to the global water cycle and therefore vital for water security – they regulate water quantity, quality, and timing and provide protective functions against (for example) soil and coastal erosion, flooding, and avalanches. Forested watersheds provide 75 percent of our freshwater, delivering water to over half the world’s population. The purpose of A Guide to Forest–Water Management is to improve the global information base on the protective functions of forests for soil and water. It reviews emerging techniques and methodologies, provides guidance and recommendations on how to manage forests for their water ecosystem services, and offers insights into the business and economic cases for managing forests for water ecosystem services. Intact native forests and well-managed planted forests can be a relatively cheap approach to water management while generating multiple co-benefits. Water security is a significant global challenge, but this paper argues that water-centered forests can provide nature-based solutions to ensuring global water resilience.
On top of a decade of exacerbated disaster loss, exceptional global heat, retreating ice and rising sea levels, humanity and our food security face a range of new and unprecedented hazards, such as megafires, extreme weather events, desert locust swarms of magnitudes previously unseen, and the COVID-19 pandemic. Agriculture underpins the livelihoods of over 2.5 billion people – most of them in low-income developing countries – and remains a key driver of development. At no other point in history has agriculture been faced with such an array of familiar and unfamiliar risks, interacting in a hyperconnected world and a precipitously changing landscape. And agriculture continues to absorb a disproportionate share of the damage and loss wrought by disasters. Their growing frequency and intensity, along with the systemic nature of risk, are upending people’s lives, devastating livelihoods, and jeopardizing our entire food system. This report makes a powerful case for investing in resilience and disaster risk reduction – especially data gathering and analysis for evidence informed action – to ensure agriculture’s crucial role in achieving the future we want.
During the last decades, soil organic carbon (SOC) attracted the attention of a much wider array of specialists beyond agriculture and soil science, as it was proven to be one of the most crucial components of the earth’s climate system, which has a great potential to be managed by humans. Soils as a carbon pool are one of the key factors in several Sustainable Development Goals, in particular Goal 15, “Protect, restore and promote sustainable use of terrestrial ecosystems, sustainably manage forests, combat desertification and halt and reverse land degradation and halt biodiversity loss” with the SOC stock being explicitly cited in Indicator 15.3.1. This technical manual is the first attempt to gather, in a standardized format, the existing data on the impacts of the main soil management practices on SOC content in a wide array of environments, including the advantages, drawbacks, and constraints. This manual presents different sustainable soil management (SSM) practices at different scales and in different contexts, supported by case studies that have been shown with quantitative data to have a positive effect on SOC stocks and successful experiences of SOC sequestration in practical field applications. Volume 2 includes a description of hot spots of SOC stocks. This manual defines hot spots of SOC as areas that represent a proportionally little of the global land surface but on which SOC storage is highly effective; bright spots as large land areas with low SOC stocks per km2 that represent a potential for further carbon sequestration.
This book provides a comprehensive overview of organic fertilizers and their importance in sustainable agriculture, biodiversity, and the environment. It presents new approaches, ideas, and trends on how to increase the effectiveness of chemical fertilizers as well as the resistance of plants against biotic and abiotic stress conditions. Chapters address such topics as the benefits of organic fertilizers over their chemical counterparts, vermicomposting, organic farming, insects in organic fertilizer production, and much more.
This book presents various aspects of agroforestry research and development, as well as the latest trends in degraded landscape management. Over the last four decades, agroforestry research (particularly on degraded landscapes) has evolved into an essential problem-solving science, e.g. in terms of sustaining agricultural productivity, improving soil health and biodiversity, enhancing ecosystem services, supporting carbon sequestration and mitigating climate change. This book examines temperate and tropical agroforestry systems around the world, focusing on traditional and modern practices and technologies used to rehabilitate degraded lands. It covers the latest research advances, trends and challenges in the utilization and reclamation of degraded lands, e.g. urban and peri-urban agroforestry, reclamation of degraded landscapes, tree-based multi-enterprise agriculture, domestication of high-value halophytes, afforestation of coastal areas, preserving mangroves and much more. Given its scope, the book offers a valuable asset for a broad range of stakeholders including farmers, scientists, researchers, educators, students, development/extension agents, environmentalists, policy/decision makers, and government and non-government organizations.
This report provides global and regional estimates of the area covered by mangrove forests, including area changes between 2000 and 2020. It analyses the drivers of these global, regional and subregional changes for the periods 2000–2010 and 2010–2020 with the aim of improving understanding of these drivers, their interactions and how their relative importance has shifted over time. In the study that underpins this report, FAO developed and validated an easy, repeatable methodology that integrates remote sensing with local knowledge. An FAO team and 48 image interpreters worldwide collected and analysed data on mangrove area in 2020, change in mangrove area between 2000 and 2020, and the drivers of change over the two decades. It is the first global study of mangrove area to provide information on land use rather than land cover.
Climate change is one of the most critical social and environmental concerns and the biggest threat to economic stability in human history. Türkiye, Azerbaijan, and Central Asia countries, namely Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan, are vulnerable to the negative impacts of climate change. Although average forest cover is only 10.2 percent of these countries (FAO-SEC countries), they play an essential role in climate change mitigation and adaptation, including human well-being and biodiversity co-benefits. The NbS concept has gained attention since the late 2000s. Its practical contribution to global climate change mitigation and adaptation efforts has found significant implementation opportunities in forestry to support the protection and conservation, restoration and expansion, and sustainable management of forests under the impact of climate change.Globally, implementing NbSs to combat the negative impact of climate change on forestry is promoted by the United Nations Forum on Forests (UNFF), United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), the Paris Agreement, United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD), Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD), The United Nations Human Settlements Programme (UN-Habitat), and the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development.Regionally, implementing NbSs to combat the negative impacts of climate change on forestry has been included in the forest policy initiatives of the countries in the sub-region recently. As a result, governments have implemented NbSs through national strategies and programs to address societal challenges by enhancing ecosystem services and promoting human well-being and biodiversity co-benefits. For example, Azerbaijan has implemented afforestation, reforestation, rehabilitation, and restoration activities in forest fund lands on an average of 9 727 hectares (ha) annually since 2000. Kazakhstan aims to save the Aral Sea basin from salinity and improve soil fertility through afforestation activities of saxaul species on 0.25 million ha, and the afforestation area in the Aral Sea will be extended by 1 million ha till 2025. Kyrgyzstan has planned a 1,000-ha annual plantation program to expand protected natural areas to 10 percent. Tajikistan implements 2,000 ha of annual plantation activities to increase the greenhouse gas (GHG) mitigation potential through participatory forestry sector development. Türkiye implemented afforestation, soil conservation, forest rehabilitation, pasture rehabilitation, private afforestation, artificial regeneration, and establishment of energy forests activities on 9.62 million ha from 1946 to 2022. Turkmenistan conducts afforestation activities with drought-resistant plant species and established the "Golden Century Lake" in the Karakum Desert to improve the climate conditions and conserve biodiversity. Uzbekistan declared the Aral Sea region
