Large‐scale reforestation can increase water yield and reduce drought risk for water‐insecure regions in the Asia‐Pacific

Abstract

Large‐scale reforestation can potentially bring both benefits and risks to the water cycle, which needs to be better quantified under future climates to inform reforestation decisions. We identified 477 water‐insecure basins worldwide accounting for 44.6% (380.2 Mha) of the global reforestation potential. As many of these basins are in the Asia‐Pacific, we used regional coupled land‐climate modeling for the period 2041–2070 to reveal that reforestation increases evapotranspiration and precipitation for most water‐insecure regions over the Asia‐Pacific. This resulted in a statistically significant increase in water yield ( p

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