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How healthy catchments create climate resilience
The U.S.A.'s Forest Service's Pacific Northwest (PNW) Research Station has published a report about the role of maintaining healthy ecological systems as a means of creating resilience in the stewardship of water in a changing climate. "Water, Climate Change, and Forests: Watershed Stewardship for a Changing Climate" describes healthy, resilient catchments as a primary strategy for sustaining ecosystems and creating water security.
According to Michael Furniss, a hydrologist with the PNW Research Station and lead author of the publication:
Water from forested lands supports people, ecosystems, agriculture, industry, and energy production and is immensely valuable and irreplaceable. With a changing climate, the need for stewardship of forested watersheds to secure high-quality water supplies and healthy aquatic ecosystems is more important than ever.
We face many serious challenges in managing forested watersheds, and it is notable that the Forest Service has remarkable expertise and experience to do this work. The Forest Service has over 800 water and aquatic ecosystem specialists posted in hundreds of locations all over the country, a robust research base and capacity, and decades of experience in watershed stewardship.
The report's 13 primary authors and more than 40 contributors and reviewers are Forest Service earth scientists and aquatic biologists who worked for two years to develop the technical details for managing watersheds for resilience and for protecting water.
