A guide to forest–water management

A guide to forest–water management

Author: Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations

Publisher: Food & Agriculture Org.

Published: 2021-08-24

Total Pages: 184

ISBN-13: 9251348510

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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.


Forest-Water Interactions

Forest-Water Interactions

Author: Delphis F. Levia

Publisher: Springer

Published: 2020-02-06

Total Pages: 0

ISBN-13: 9783030260859

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The United Nations has declared 2018-2028 as the International Decade for Action on Water for Sustainable Development. This is a timely designation. In an increasingly thirsty world, the subject of forest-water interactions is of critical importance to the achievement of sustainability goals. The central underlying tenet of this book is that the hydrologic community can conduct better science and make a more meaningful impact to the world’s water crisis if scientists are: (1) better equipped to utilize new methods and harness big data from either or both high-frequency sensors and long-term research watersheds; and (2) aware of new developments in our process-based understanding of the hydrological cycle in both natural and urban settings. Accordingly, this forward-looking book delves into forest-water interactions from multiple methodological, statistical, and process-based perspectives (with some chapters featuring data sets and open-source R code), concluding with a chapter on future forest hydrology under global change. Thus, this book describes the opportunities of convergence in high-frequency sensing, big data, and open source software to catalyze more comprehensive understanding of forest-water interactions. The book will be of interest to researchers, graduate students, and advanced undergraduates in an array of disciplines, including hydrology, forestry, ecology, botany, and environmental engineering.


Forests & Water Guidelines

Forests & Water Guidelines

Author: Great Britain. Forestry Commission

Publisher:

Published: 1993

Total Pages: 40

ISBN-13:

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This work advises owners and managers how woodlands and forests influence the freshwater ecosystem, and gives guidance on how operations should be carried out in order to protect and enhance the water environment. The guidelines apply equally to forest enterprises and the private sector.


Advancing the forest and water nexus

Advancing the forest and water nexus

Author: Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations

Publisher: Food & Agriculture Org.

Published: 2019-10-18

Total Pages: 140

ISBN-13: 925131859X

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Forests are intrinsically linked to water – forested watersheds provide 75 percent of our accessible freshwater resources (Millennium Ecosystem Assessment, 2005) – and both forest and water resources are relevant to the achievement of all 17 Sustainable Development Goals. Despite the important interlinkages, the forest-water nexus is often unaccounted for in policy and planning. For example, three quarters of forests are not managed for soil and water conservation, which poses a fundamental challenge to achieving sustainable and resilient communities and ecosystems. It is paramount to employ an integrated approach to forest and water resources in management and policy that takes into account the complexity and contextual nature of forest-water relationships. To achieve this, we must improve our understanding of forest-water relationships within local contexts and at different scales, as well as our ability to design, implement, and learn from landscape approaches that both rely on these forest-water relationships, and impact them. In this context, FAO’s Forest and Water Programme has developed a module-based capacity development facilitation guide for project and community stakeholders involved in forest, water and natural resource management to ensure we apply our knowledge to better manage forests and trees for their multiple benefits, including water quantity, quality and the associated socio-economic benefits that people within and outside forests so heavily depend on.


Climate change vulnerability assessment of forests and forest-dependent people

Climate change vulnerability assessment of forests and forest-dependent people

Author: Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations

Publisher: Food & Agriculture Org.

Published: 2019-11-29

Total Pages: 101

ISBN-13: 9251319812

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Negative impacts of climate change on forests threaten the delivery of crucial wood and non-wood goods and environmental services on which an estimated 1.6 billion people fully or partly depend. Assessment of the vulnerability of forests and forest-dependent people to climate change is a necessary first step for identifying the risks and the most vulnerable areas and people, and for developing measures for adaptation and targeting them for specific contexts. This publication provides practical technical guidance for forest vulnerability assessment in the context of climate change. It describes the elements that should be considered for different time horizons and outlines a structured approach for conducting these assessments. The framework will guide practitioners in conducting a step-by-step analysis and will facilitate the choice and use of appropriate tools and methods. Background information is provided separately in text boxes, to assist readers with differing amounts of experience in forestry, climate change and assessment practices. The publication will provide useful support to any vulnerability assessment with a forest- and tree-related component.


Forest Management and the Water Cycle

Forest Management and the Water Cycle

Author: Michael Bredemeier

Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media

Published: 2010-10-25

Total Pages: 532

ISBN-13: 9048198348

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The protective function of forests for water quality and water-related hazards, as well as adequate water supplies for forest ecosystems in Europe, are potentially at risk due to changing climate and changing land-management practices. Water budgets of forest ecosystems are heavily dependent on climate and forest structure. The latter is determined by the management measures applied in the forestry sector. Various developments of forest management strategies, imposed on a background of changing climate, are considered in assessing the overall future of forest–water interactions in Europe. Synthesizing recent research on the interactions of forest management and the water regime of forests in Europe and beyond, the book makes an important contribution to the ongoing dialogue between scientists dealing with different scales of forest-water interactions. This collaborative endeavour, which covers geographic and climatic gradients from Iceland to Israel and from southern Spain to Estonia and Finland, was made possible through the COST Action "Forest Management and the Water Cycle (FORMAN)", which was launched in 2007 (http://www.forestandwater.eu/). The book will be of particular interest to the research community involved in forest ecosystem research and forest hydrology, as well as landscape ecologists and hydrologists in general. It will also provide reference material for forest practitioners and planners in hydrology and land use.


Effects of Drought on Forests and Rangelands in the United States

Effects of Drought on Forests and Rangelands in the United States

Author: James M. Vose

Publisher:

Published: 2016

Total Pages: 302

ISBN-13:

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This assessment provides input to the reauthorized National Integrated Drought Information System (NIDIS) and the National Climate Assessment (NCA), and it establishes the scientific foundation needed to manage for drought resilience and adaptation. Focal areas include drought characterization; drought impacts on forest processes and disturbances such as insect outbreaks and wildfire; and consequences for forest and rangeland values. Drought can be a severe natural disaster with substantial social and economic consequences. Drought becomes most obvious when large-scale changes are observed; however, even moderate drought can have long-lasting impacts on the structure and function of forests and rangelands without these obvious large-scale changes. Large, stand-level impacts of drought are already underway in the West, but all U.S. forests are vulnerable to drought. Drought-associated forest disturbances are expected to increase with climatic change. Management actions can either mitigate or exacerbate the effects of drought. A first principal for increasing resilience and adaptation is to avoid management actions that exacerbate the effects of current or future drought. Options to mitigate drought include altering structural or functional components of vegetation, minimizing drought-mediated disturbance such as wildfire or insect outbreaks, and managing for reliable flow of water.


Managing Landscapes for Change

Managing Landscapes for Change

Author: Robert M. Scheller

Publisher: Springer Nature

Published: 2020-11-27

Total Pages: 111

ISBN-13: 3030620417

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This book discusses how future landscapes will be shaped by pervasive change and where, when, and how society should manage landscapes for change. Readers will learn about the major anthropogenic drivers of landscape change, including climate change and human induced disturbance regimes, and the unique consequences that multiple and simultaneously occurring change agents can have on landscapes. The author uses landscape trajectories as a guide to selecting the appropriate course of action, and considers how landscape position, inertia, and direction will determine landscape futures. The author introduces the concept of landscapes as socio-technical-ecological systems (STES), which combines ecological and technological influences on future landscape change and the need for society to acknowledge both when considering landscape management. Thinking beyond solutions, the author identifies barriers to managing landscapes for change including the cost, cultural identity of local populations, and the fear of taking action under uncertain conditions. Nevertheless, processes, tools, and technologies exist for overcoming social and ecological barriers to managing landscapes for change, and continued investment in social and scientific infrastructure holds out hope for maintaining our landscape values even as we enter an era of unprecedented change and disruption.


Sustainable Development Goals

Sustainable Development Goals

Author: Pia Katila

Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Published: 2019-12-12

Total Pages: 653

ISBN-13: 1108486991

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A global assessment of potential and anticipated impacts of efforts to achieve the SDGs on forests and related socio-economic systems. This title is available as Open Access via Cambridge Core.