Abstract
Tropical deforestation has many consequences, amongst which alteration of the hydrological cycle and loss of habitat and biodiversity are the focus of much public interest and scientific research. Here we examine the potential biodiversity and hydrological impacts of an extreme deforestation scenario – the loss of all tropical forest areas currently identified by the World Wildlife Fund as being threatened. Existing tropical forest areas are first classified according to two categories of biological distinctiveness – high and low – using indicators developed by the WWF. We apply the tropical deforestation scenario to a macro-scale hydrologic model, keeping track of the share of change in basin runoff that originates from the deforestation of areas of high versus low biological distinctiveness and where that change could impact human populations. Of particular interest are those basins where loss of the most threatened tropical forest areas would give rise to significant biodiversity loss and to potentially large hydrological impacts. In such cases it is conceivable that biodiversity conservation could “free-ride” on the concerns of resident populations to maintain the forests for the purpose of minimizing hydrological change. Where such an outcome seems likely, biodiversity conservation efforts might be better targeted elsewhere, perhaps to basins where the loss of forest areas with high biological distinctiveness would have less population impacts, hence requiring an alliance between biological and hydrological interests to gain sufficient social and financial support for conservation.
Similar content being viewed by others
References
Bailey, RG (1998) Ecoregions: the ecosystem geography of oceans and continents. Springer-Verlag, New York
Bonell M, Balek J (1993) Recent scientific developments and research needs in hydrological processes. In: Bonell M, Hufschmidt M, Gladwell J (eds) Hydrology and water management in the humid tropics. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, UK
Bruinjzeel, LA (1990) Hydrology of moist tropical forests and effects of conversion: a state of knowledge review. UNESCO, International Hydrologic Programme, Paris, p 224
Bruijnzeel LA (1991) Hydrological impacts of tropical forest conversion. Nat Resour 27(2):36–46
Bruijnzeel LA (1996) Chapter 2– Predicting the hydrological impacts of land cover transformation in the humid tropics: the need for more research. In: Gash JHC , Nobre CA (eds) Amazonian deforestation and climate. John Wiley&Sons
Bruijnzeel LA (2004) Hydrological functions of tropical forests: not seeing the soil for the trees? Agriculture, ecosystems and the environment. Agr Ecosyst Environ 104:185–228
Bruijnzeel LA (2005) Tropical montane cloud forest: a unique hydrological case. In: Bonell M, Bruijnzeel LA (eds) Forests, water and people in the humid tropics: Past, present and future hydrological research for integrated land and water management. UNESCO International Hydrology Series, Cambridge University Press, U.K
Bruijnzeel LA, Bonell M, Gilmour DA, Lamb D (2005) Forests, water and people in the humid tropics: an emerging view. In: Bonell M, Bruijnzeel LA (eds) Forests, Water and People in the Humid Tropics: Past, present and future hydrological research for integrated land and water management. UNESCO International Hydrology Series, Cambridge University Press, U.K
Bruinjzeel LA, Proctor J (1995) Hydrology and biogeochemistry of tropical montane cloud forests: what do we really know? In: Hamilton LS, Juvik JO, Scatena FN (eds) Tropical montane cloud forests, ecological studies 110. Springer Verlag, New York
Bruinsma J (ed) (2003) World agriculture towards 2015/2030. Rome: Food and Agriculture Organization
Calder IR (1990) Evaporation in the uplands. Wiley, New York, p 148
Calder IR (2005) The blue revolution: land use and integrated water resources management. Earthscan, London
Convention on Biological Diversity [CBD] (2002) Text of convention on biological diversity: Article 2 (1992). Available on-line at www.biodiv.org, (accessed October 20, 2005)
Chomitz K, Kumari K (2005) The domestic benefits of tropical forest preservation: a critical review emphasizing hydrological functions. World Bank Res Obs 13(1):13–35
CIESIN (2005) Global Urban-Rural Mapping Project, Center for International Earth Science Information Network (CIESIN), Columbia University, http://beta.sedac.ciesin.columbia.edu/gpw/index.jspaccessed online on September 8, 2005
Costa MH (2005) Large-scale hydrological impacts of tropical forest conversion. In: Bonell M, Bruijnzeel LA (eds) Forests, water and people in the humid tropics: past, present and future hydrological research for integrated land and water management. UNESCO International Hydrology Series, Cambridge University Press, U.K
Defries R, Hansen M, Townshend J (1995) Global discrimination of land cover types from metrics derived from AVHRR pathfinder data. Remote Sensing Environ 5–4:209–222
Dinerstein E, Olson DM, Graham DJ, Webster AL, Primm SA, Bookbinder MP, Ledec G (1995) A conservation assessment of the terrestrial ecoregions of Latin America and the Caribbean. World, Washington, D.C.
Döll P, Siebert S (2000) A digital global map of irrigated areas. ICID J 49(2):55–66
Douglas EM, Sebastian K, Vörösmarty CJ, Wood S (2005) The role of tropical forests in supporting biodiversity and hydrologic integrity. World Bank Policy Research Working Paper No. 3635, Social Science Research Network, Washington, DC, 2005. Available on-line at http://econ.worldbank.org (accessed October 20, 2005)
Dudley N, Stolton S (2003) Running pure. World Bank/WWF Alliance
Elvidge CD, Imhoff ML, Baugh KE, Hobson VR, Nelson I, Safran J, Dietz JB, Tuttle BT (2001) Nighttime Lights of the World: 1994–1995. ISPRS J Photogrammetry Remote Sensing 56:81–99
Federer CA, Vörösmarty C, Fekete B (2003) Sensitivity of annual evaporation to soil and root properties in two models of contrasting complexity. J. Hydrometeorology 4:1276–1290
Federer CA, Vörösmarty C, Fekete B (1996) Intercomparison of methods for calculating potential evaporation in regional and global water balance models. Water Resour Res 32(7):2315–2321
Fekete BM, Vörösmarty CJ, Lammers RB (2001) Scaling girdded river networks for macro scale hydrology: development, analysis, and control of error. Water Resour Res 3(77):1955–1967
FAO/CIFOR (2005) Forests and floods: drowning in fiction or thriving on the facts? Bangkok, FAO. RAP Publication 2005/03
Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) (2001) Global Forest Resources Assessment 2000: Main Report, FAO Forestry Paper 140, Rome, Italy
Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) (1995) Digital Soil Map of the World, Version 3.5. FAO, Rome, Italy
Global Land Cover [GLC] (2000) Available on-line at http://www-gvm.jrc.it/glc2000/. Accessed on October 20, 2005
Global Land Cover Characteristics Database. Version 2.0 [GLCCD] (2001) Available online at: http://edcdaac.usgs.gov/glcc/glcc.html
Global Soil Data Task (2000) Global Soil Data Products CD-ROM (IGBP-DIS). CD-ROM. International Geosphere-Biosphere Programme, Data and Information System, Potsdam, Germany. Available from Oak Ridge National Laboratory Distributed Active Archive Center, Oak Ridge, Tennessee, U.S.A. [http://www.daac.ornl.gov]
Holdridge LR (1967) Life zone ecology. Tropical Science Center, San José (Costa Rica)
International Food Policy Research Institute (2002) Global Agricultural Extent v2.0. Available online at: http://www.asb.cgiar.org/BNPP/phase2/bnpp phase2datasets.htm
Jackson IJ (1975) Relationship between rainfall parameters and interception by tropical forests. J Hydrol 24:215–238
Jackson RB, Canadell J, Ehleringer JR, Mooney HA, Sala OE, Schulze ED (1996) A global analysis of root distributions for terrestrial biomes. Oecologia 108:389–411
Kiedon A, Heimann M (1998) A method of determining rooting depth from a terrestrial biosphere model and its impacts on the global water and carbon cycles. Global Change Biol 4(3):275–286
LandScan (2002) LandScan Global Population Database, Oak Ridge National Laboratory, Oak Ridge, TN. Available at http://www.ornl.gov.gist/
Mace G (2003) Personal Communication related to work on the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment
Millennium Ecosystem Assessment (2005) Ecosystems and human well-being: synthesis. Island Press, Washington DC
Melillo JM, McGuire AD, Kickligher DW, Moore B, Vörösmarty CJ, Schloss AL (1993) Global climate change and terrestrial net primary production. Nature 363:234–240
Monteith JL (1965) Evaporation and environment. In: The State and Movement of Water in Living Organisms. In: Proceedings of the 19th Symposium of the Society of Experimental Biology. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, UK, pp 205–233
New M, Hulme M, Jones P (1998) Representing twentieth century space-time climate variability, Part II: development of 1901–1996 monthly grids. J Clim 13:2217–2238
Olson DM, Dinerstein E, Wikramanayake ED, Burgess ND, Powell GVN, Underwood EC, D'Amico JA, Itoua I, Strand HE, Morrison JC, Loucks CJ, Allnutt TF, Ricketts TH, Kura Y, Lamoreux JF, Wettengel WW, Hedao P, Kassem KR (2001) Terrestrial Ecoregions of the World: A New Map of Life on Earth. BioScience 51(11):935–938
Oyebande L (1988) Effects of tropical forest on water yield. In: Reynolds E, Thompson F (eds) Forest, climate, and hydrology: regional impacts. The United Nations University, Kefford Press, Singapore
Ramankutty N (2003) Global grazing lands dataset. Center for sustainability and the global environment (SAGE). University of Wisconsin, Madison. Data made available through personal communication
Ricketts TH, Dinerstein E, Olson DM, Loucks CJ, Eichbaum W (1999) Terrestrial ecoregions of North America: A Conservation Assessment. Island Press, Washington, D.C
Schulze ED, Kelliher FM, Korner C, Lloyd J, Leuning R (1994) Relationships among maximum stomatal conductance, ecosystem surface conductance, and carbon assimilation rate and plant nitrogen nutrition: a global ecology scaling exercise. Annu Rev Ecol Syst 25:629–660
Sebastian K, Douglas E, Wood S, Vörösmarty C (2003) Functional Value of Biodiversity: pantropic/meso-scale analysis and synthesis– Phase II Final Report. (unpublished). Washington, D.C.: World Bank. http://www.asb.cgiar.org/BNPP/phase2/ifpri/techreport/Act1\_technical\_report.pdf
Shuttleworth JW, Wallace JS (1985) Evaporation from sparse crops: an energy combination theory. Q J R Meteorol Soc 111:839–855
Tomich, TP, Chomitz KM, Francisco H, Izac AMN, Murdiyarso D, Ratner BD, Thomas DE, van Noordwijk M (2004) Policy analysis and environmental problems at different scales: asking the right questions. Agric Ecosyst Envir 104:5–18
Udvardy MDE (1975) A classification of the biogeographical provinces of the world. Morges (Switzerland): International Union of Conservation of Nature and Natural Resources. IUCN Occasional Paperno. 18
United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization [UNESCO] (1969) A framework for a classification of world vegetation. UNESCO, Paris
Vörösmarty CJ, Federer CA, Schloss AL (1998) Potential evaporation functions compared on US watersheds: possible implications for global-scale water balance and terrestrial ecosystem modeling. J Hydrol 207:147–169
World Conservation Monitoring Centre [WCMC] (1992) Global Biodiversity: Status of the Earth's Living Resources. Chapman and Hall, London
Wikramanayake E, Dinerstein E, Loucks CJ, Olson DM, Morrison J, Lamoreaux J, et al (2000) Terrestrial ecoregions of the Indo-Pacific: a conservation assessment. Island Press, Washington, DC, p. 643
Wood S, Sebastian K, Scherr SJ (2000) Pilot analysis of global ecosystems: agroecosystems. World Resources Institute/International Food Policy Research Institute. Washington D.C
World Bank (2002) Sustainable development in a dynamic world: transforming institution, growth, and the quality of life. Oxford University Press, New York. World Development Report, Washington, DC
Zeng XB (2001) Global vegetation root distribution for land modeling. J Hydrometeorol 2(5):525–530
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Douglas, E.M., Wood, S., Sebastian, K. et al. Policy implications of a pan-tropic assessment of the simultaneous hydrological and biodiversity impacts of deforestation. Water Resour Manage 21, 211–232 (2007). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11269-006-9050-2
Received:
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11269-006-9050-2