The first day will be devoted to sharing knowledge between scientists and practitioners from the policy and management community. This feedback will then be taken further during the second day by a smaller group that will draft a concise “opinion/perspectives paper” targeted to a multidisciplinary policy and management audience. We will also explore tools to visualize spatial relationships between trees and the water budget to improve understanding and communication of the complex hydrological processes to decision makers. Participation in the workshop is by invitation only, and limited to a small group. Contact Ulrik Ilstedt if you are interested in the workshop.
Aims of the workshop:
- Demonstrate the link between water, trees and food security.
- Summarize what policy and decision makers should have knowledge about a) the limitations of previous studies on trees and water in the tropics and b) the results from more recent studies in relevant areas.
- To show the discrepancy between the role of trees in the present complex tropical landscapes and the type of areas where the empirical hydrological data come from. (That is the importance of open forests, woodlands, agroforests, and degraded areas versus fast growing plantations and closed forests).
- Estimate how much areas there are in the tropics that without trees will have degraded hydrological properties (increase surface runoff/erosion and decreased infiltration).
- To present knowledge of the hydrological functioning of trees in these landscapes and possible ways of visualizing the effects on the water budget spatially.
- From the above suggest future research to address major gaps with relevance for policy and decision making.
Planned Outputs:
- A perspectives/opinion paper of 4000-5000 words. This should be peer- reviewed, open-access and targeted to a multidisciplinary and policy audience.
- A 4 page policy brief based on this paper targeted to certain stakeholders.
- A web based (pilot) visualization tool.
- Pod-cast of presentations.