Billions of people worldwide rely on streams flowing from forest lands for their water supply.
Billions of people worldwide rely on streams flowing from forest lands for their water supply.
But the link between forests and the amount of water flowing in streams and rivers has been a hotly-debated topic for decades.
New research by the University of Saskatchewan (USask), published in Nature, has found that the amount of water that the landscape is able to retain is the crucial factor in predicting annual steam-flow increases when trees are cut down.
A study by USask’s Global Institute for Water Security (GIWS) concluded that the capacity of the soil in which trees grow to absorb and retain water is the key factor determining the impact of deforestation on annual streamflow.
Continue reading at University of Saskatchewan.
Image via University of Saskatchewan.
