Soil and water impacts of reforesting degraded land and regreening
Estimates of the extent of global land degradation vary between 15% and 23% of the total land surface area, representing 1964 to 3500 million hectares, respectively. Of the various forms of soil degradation, soil erosion by water is the most predominant (55%), followed by wind erosion (28%).
The lives of an estimated 1.5 billion people are affected directly by land degradation whereas governments spend billions annually to remedy the adverse costs of erosion.
Various global initiatives have recently advocated the need for large-scale forest and landscape restoration, such as the Global Partnership in Forest Landscape Restoration , the Bonn Challenge, and, most recently, the Commonland Foundation.
arious soil and water impacts of reforestation have been addressed in past VU University research projects conducted in Java, Fiji, Slovenia, and Brazil, while current work with various national and international partners focuses on the hydrological consequences of reforesting severely degraded soils in Nepal, the Philippines, Mexico, and Colombia.
Selected review publications on soil and water impacts of tropical forestation
- Bruijnzeel, L.A. (2014). Hydrological impacts of tropical (de)forestation: ‘traditional’ vs. ‘modern’ views. Talk recorded at the Global Institute for Water Security, University of Saskatchewan, Saskatoon, Canada, 17 September.
- Malmer, A., Murdiyarso, D., Bruijnzeel, L.A., and Ilstedt, U. (2009). Carbon sequestration in tropical forests and water: a critical look at the basis for commonly used generalizations. Global Change Biology. DOI: 10.1111/j.1365-2406.2009.01984x.
- Scott, D.F., Bruijnzeel, L.A., and Mackensen, J. (2005). The hydrological and soil impacts of forestation in the tropics. pp. 622-651 in M. Bonell & L.A. Bruijnzeel (Editors), Forests, Water and People in the Humid Tropics. Cambridge University Press.
- Bruijnzeel, L.A. (1997). Hydrology of forest plantations in the humid tropics. in E.K.S. Nambiar & A.G. Brown (Editors), Management of Soil, Nutrients and Water in Tropical Plantation Forests. ACIAR, Canberra and CIFOR, Jakarta, pp. 125-167.
Last modified: Wed Dec 30 12:11:59 CET 2015
