Welcome to the Forests and Water Network Platform!
On this platform you can discuss topics relating to the Forest and Water Nexus. This is a space to share questions and ideas, as well as to foster collaboration on projects and strategies that will advance the knowledge of forest-water interactions. We welcome members to share relevant resources in our Library and let the community know about your upcoming events by adding them to the Calendar.
To raise awareness, we also encourage you to share your work on social media. When you do, don’t forget to tag us @FoWaNetwork #ForestH20 when publishing items relevant to the forest-water nexus. Posts with the #ForestH20 are uploaded onto the FAO’s Forest and Water Programme website for more visibility.
Forests and Water: managing our connected natural capital
The close relationship between forests and water is complex and context specific. The range of forest-water interactions, and how different processes and effects occur at different scales, are challenges. However, the knowledge exists to help prioritise how forests should be managed within our landscapes in symbiotic relationships with water-related ecosystem services, such as soil erosion control, flood reduction, precipitation cycling and groundwater recharge. The same research can help us to identify and manage for trade-offs.
We urge caution with generalised assumptions due to the highly contextual nature of forest-water relationships. What is true for one location may not be true for another. More research and monitoring on forest-water interactions is therefore required, and should be a requirement of restoration and landscape initiatives.
If we are to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals; the Aichi targets on biodiversity; and climate targets in the Paris Agreement, we must improve our ability to design, implement, and learn from landscape approaches that both rely on the relationships between forests and water, and impact them.
Adapted from a statement of forest and water sector representatives, Stockholm, 28 August 2017.