Trees have been around for more than 370 million years, and today there are about 80 thousand species of them, occupying 3.5 billion hectares worldwide, including 250 million ha of commercial plantations. While forests can provide tremendous environmental, social, and economic benefits to nations, they also affect the hydrologic cycle in different ways. As the demand for water grows and local precipitation patterns change due to global warming, plantation forestry has encountered an increasing number of water-related conflicts worldwide. This document provides a country-by-country summary of the current state of knowledge on the relationship between forest management and water resources. Based on available research publications, the Editor-in-Chief of this document contacted local scientists from countries where the impact of forest management on water resources is an issue, inviting them to submit a chapter.

This paper reviews perceived notions of the relationships between catchment land use and hydrology and explores whether much of the widely disseminated folklore, so often inextricably linked with issues of land use, is based on myth or reality. Gaps in our knowledge of the underlying processes in relation to land use and hydrology are identified. Our ability to apply this knowledge at different scales ranging from the plot to the catchment and regional scales are discussed and specific examples are drawn from Indian and African case studies. Methods for linking spatially distributed land-use hydrological models with economics and ecology through decision support systems are outlined and proposed as a framework for the integrated management of land and water developments at the catchment scale.

This book is about water - in Britain, and in the world. It is about water resources, their conservation, protection of water quality for human consumption and aquatic ecosystems. Since the publication of the first edition in 1998, major political and regulatory changes have taken place; this book provides a clear and comprehensive update of conservation and water resource management issues in the UK over the past two decades, and – in an expansion of its original UK perspective – now includes examples of global best practice. The UK’s 2003 adoption of the EU Water Framework Directive has had enormous implications for the conservation and management of our water resources. In 2016, with the UK’s decision to leave the EU, the governance scene is entering upon an unpredictable future regarding its major water resource policies. The Protection and Conservation of Water Resources, Second edition provides a clear and comprehensive update of conservation and water resource management issues. Chapter 1 deals with sustainability and water policy, outlines the issues and challenges, and asks: what is integrated water management? Chapter 2 reviews water availability and sufficiency in Britain, while Chapter 3 explores the dynamic between institutions and legislative framework. Chapter 4 introduces the catchment approach, and chapters 5 and 6 explore the issues of sustaining bulk supply and the imperatives of climate change. Chapter 7 looks at the contemporary background to water quality issues, and Chapter 8 provides case studies of catchment problems, both urban and rural. Chapter 9 describes solutions in land use change, including technical fixes and their sustainability. Chapter 10 is concerned with emerging governance arrangements, and Chapter 11 takes a global view, looking at successful examples around the world to find positive lessons from Europe, north America and Australia.

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.

This book arises out of a symposium on forest and woodland terrestrial ecosystems which was held in Florence on 20-24th May 1991. It was organised jointly by the Commission of the European Communities (CEC) and the European Science Foundation (ESF) in association with the Italian Research Council (CNR). The symposium brQughUogether most -Of the internationally recognized groups working on forest ecosystems including biologists, botanists, ecologists, soil scientists, modellers, foresters and policy makers. All the CEC countries were represented. In addition, there was a broad audience from Eastern and Central Europe and from EFfA countries. Outstanding experts from outside Europe (US, Australia, Canada, Japan, China, etc.) were also present. In total, the symposium was attended by more than 500 participants. The structure of this book reflects the main elements of the meeting. As such it includes three main sections. The first consists of six major state-of-the-art reviews corresponding to the six plenary sessions, each followed by a discussion which has been summarized by rapporteurs. The reviews were prepared to assess critically the state of current knowledge in ecosystem research and to provide a scientific basis both for policy decisions and for further research.