Large‐scale reforestation can increase water yield and reduce drought risk for water‐insecure regions in the Asia‐Pacific

Large‐scale reforestation can potentially bring both benefits and risks to the water cycle, which needs to be better quantified under future climates to inform reforestation decisions. We identified 477 water‐insecure basins worldwide accounting for 44.6% (380.2 Mha) of the global reforestation pote...

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Published in:Global change biology 2022-11, Vol.28 (21), p.6385-6403
Main Authors: Teo, Hoong Chen, Raghavan, Srivatsan V., He, Xiaogang, Zeng, Zhenzhong, Cheng, Yanyan, Luo, Xiangzhong, Lechner, Alex M., Ashfold, Matthew J., Lamba, Aakash, Sreekar, Rachakonda, Zheng, Qiming, Chen, Anping, Koh, Lian Pin
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Basins
Climate models
Drought
Environmental risk
Evapotranspiration
forest–water nexus
Hydrologic cycle
Hydrological cycle
Moisture effects
natural climate solutions
nature‐based solutions
Precipitation
Probability theory
Reforestation
Regions
socio‐ecological systems
Soil moisture
Statistical analysis
Water
water balance
water risk
water stress
Water yield
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Summary:Large‐scale reforestation can potentially bring both benefits and risks to the water cycle, which needs to be better quantified under future climates to inform reforestation decisions. We identified 477 water‐insecure basins worldwide accounting for 44.6% (380.2 Mha) of the global reforestation potential. As many of these basins are in the Asia‐Pacific, we used regional coupled land‐climate modeling for the period 2041–2070 to reveal that reforestation increases evapotranspiration and precipitation for most water‐insecure regions over the Asia‐Pacific. This resulted in a statistically significant increase in water yield (p 
ISSN:1354-1013
1365-2486
DOI:10.1111/gcb.16404