Forest Influences on Climate and Water Resources at the Landscape to Regional Scale - Landscape Ecology for Sustainable Environment and Culture - page 299

Chapter 15
Forest Influences on Climate
and Water Resources at the Landscape
to Regional Scale
Ge Sun and Yongqiang Liu
Abstract Although it is well known that climate controls the distribution,
productivity and functioning of vegetation on earth, our knowledge about the role
of forests in regulating regional climate and water resources is lacking. The studies
on climate-forests feedbacks have received increasing attention from the climate
change and ecohydrology research communities. The goal of this study is to
provide an in-depth examination of forest-climate-water interactions by synthe-
sizing recent scientific literature on the influences of forests on climate and water
resources from watershed to regional scale. The synthesis paper provides a review
of the state of art of our understanding of the mechanisms of interactions of forests
and climate and water resources at the landscape and regional scale. The paper
presents two case studies that examine the influences of forests on microclimate,
watershed hydrology, and regional climate and water resources at a small water-
shed to region scale using literature from the Coweeta Hydrological Laboratory in
the southeast U.S. and a simulation study on the North China Shelter Belt Project.
Future research gaps were identified in terms of integrated Earth System modeling
to guide forest management for global change mitigation and adaptation.
Keywords Climate change Forest hydrology Micrometeorology Water
resources