Change search
CiteExportLink to record
Permanent link

Direct link
Cite
Citation style
  • apa
  • ieee
  • modern-language-association-8th-edition
  • vancouver
  • Other style
More styles
Language
  • de-DE
  • en-GB
  • en-US
  • fi-FI
  • nn-NO
  • nn-NB
  • sv-SE
  • Other locale
More languages
Output format
  • html
  • text
  • asciidoc
  • rtf
Forests support global crop supply through atmospheric moisture transport
Stockholm University, Faculty of Science, Stockholm Resilience Centre. Stockholm University, Faculty of Science, The Bolin Centre for Climate Research (together with KTH & SMHI).ORCID iD: 0000-0002-0075-334x
Stockholm University, Faculty of Science, Stockholm Resilience Centre. Stockholm University, Faculty of Science, The Bolin Centre for Climate Research (together with KTH & SMHI). Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research, Germany.ORCID iD: 0000-0001-7335-5679
Stockholm University, Faculty of Science, Stockholm Resilience Centre. Stockholm University, Faculty of Science, The Bolin Centre for Climate Research (together with KTH & SMHI). Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research, Germany; Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences, Sweden.ORCID iD: 0000-0002-7739-5069
Number of Authors: 42025 (English)In: Nature Water, E-ISSN 2731-6084, Vol. 3, p. 1243-1255Article in journal (Refereed) Published
Abstract [en]

Anomalous precipitation patterns associated with climate change increasingly threaten global crop supply. Forests, as major moisture source, could potentially buffer these risks, yet their specific role in sustaining agriculture and global crop supply remains underexplored. We investigate global forests’ contribution to crop production and export by estimating moisture flows from forests to agricultural areas and pairing them with traded crop flows. We find that agricultural areas in 155 countries rely on transboundary forests for up to 40% of annual precipitation, whereas in 105 countries, as much as 18% of precipitation is recycled from forests nationally. Moisture from forests globally supports 18% of crop production and 30% of crop export studied. We show that crop producers, exporters and importers are directly and indirectly dependent on upwind forested countries through three typologies. Our study implies that strategically conserving forests located upwind of agricultural areas could be leveraged to safeguard global crop supply.

Place, publisher, year, edition, pages
2025. Vol. 3, p. 1243-1255
National Category
Agricultural Science Environmental Sciences and Nature Conservation
Identifiers
URN: urn:nbn:se:su:diva-249134DOI: 10.1038/s44221-025-00518-4ISI: 001598737000001Scopus ID: 2-s2.0-105019526224OAI: oai:DiVA.org:su-249134DiVA, id: diva2:2012944
Available from: 2025-11-11 Created: 2025-11-11 Last updated: 2026-03-20Bibliographically approved
In thesis
1. Moisture recycling in forest-agricultural systems: An interdisciplinary view within and across scales
Open this publication in new window or tab >>Moisture recycling in forest-agricultural systems: An interdisciplinary view within and across scales
2026 (English)Doctoral thesis, comprehensive summary (Other academic)
Abstract [en]

Moisture recycling is a hydrological process that captures the journey of water particles in the atmosphere - starting with terrestrial and oceanic evaporation, continuing with their windborne transport, and ending with precipitation back on land and ocean. Land cover affects the amount of recycled precipitation, and hence the ways we, as humans, use, manage, and govern land concern moisture recycling. Moisture recycling is scarcely managed and governed currently, despite being increasingly recognized as an important process in the biosphere, supporting our society. Moisture recycling is one of the many processes entangling forests and agriculture at various scales, as part of forest-agricultural social-ecological systems. Forests have the potential for securing precipitation for downwind agriculture, although the understanding of this process within the broader forest-agricultural systems remains limited and improving this understanding requires an interdisciplinary approach. As our biophysical understanding of moisture recycling progresses, a question arises: how can we use the knowledge of moisture recycling to guide our activities on land that safeguard forests and agriculture synergistically? The thesis attempts to answer this question by applying a social-ecological systems perspective and an interdisciplinary approach to investigate the interdependence between forests and agriculture through moisture recycling. By applying the forest-agricultural systems context and beyond, the thesis further assesses the need to govern moisture recycling as a mediating process in social-ecological systems. Five papers in this thesis cover different scales of social-ecological processes entangling forests and agriculture. Paper I analyzes moisture recycling at the national scale, to conceptualize its interconnection with forests, agricultural production, and crop trade across countries globally. Paper II focuses on the regional scale dynamics of moisture recycling and the role of forests as moisture sources during heatwaves in Europe. Paper III zooms in on the local scale to detect changes in local forests and shifting cultivation practices as a result of social-ecological pressures on land in the Democratic Republic of Congo. Paper IV complements Paper III with an investigation into the moisture recycling process connecting local forests with local agricultural practices. Finally, Paper V uses a futuring exercise to imagine the governance of moisture recycling as economic goods at diverse scales. Together, these papers suggest that forests support downwind agricultural production through the provision of precipitation within and across scales. This relationship is reciprocal, considering that forests are also influenced by the state of downwind agriculture through social dynamics. Accordingly, moisture recycling unravels a new way of interdependence between forests and agriculture. This thesis advances the moisture recycling knowledge beyond its biophysical aspects, and prompts us to reflect on what governing moisture recycling in the future would entail.

Place, publisher, year, edition, pages
Stockholm: Stockholm Resilience Centre, Stockholm University, 2026. p. 77
Keywords
moisture recycling, forests, agriculture, social-ecological systems, interdisciplinary
National Category
Earth and Related Environmental Sciences Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries Environmental Sciences
Research subject
Sustainability Science
Identifiers
urn:nbn:se:su:diva-251975 (URN)978-91-8107-508-3 (ISBN)978-91-8107-509-0 (ISBN)
Public defence
2026-03-06, Hörsal 4, Hus 2, Albano, Albanovägen 18, and online via Zoom, public link is available at the department website, Stockholm, 14:00 (English)
Opponent
Supervisors
Available from: 2026-02-13 Created: 2026-01-29 Last updated: 2026-02-11Bibliographically approved

Open Access in DiVA

No full text in DiVA

Other links

Publisher's full textScopus

Authority records

Pranindita, AgnesFetzer, IngoWang-Erlandsson, Lan

Search in DiVA

By author/editor
Pranindita, AgnesFetzer, IngoWang-Erlandsson, Lan
By organisation
Stockholm Resilience CentreThe Bolin Centre for Climate Research (together with KTH & SMHI)
In the same journal
Nature Water
Agricultural ScienceEnvironmental Sciences and Nature Conservation

Search outside of DiVA

GoogleGoogle Scholar

doi
urn-nbn

Altmetric score

doi
urn-nbn
Total: 68 hits
CiteExportLink to record
Permanent link

Direct link
Cite
Citation style
  • apa
  • ieee
  • modern-language-association-8th-edition
  • vancouver
  • Other style
More styles
Language
  • de-DE
  • en-GB
  • en-US
  • fi-FI
  • nn-NO
  • nn-NB
  • sv-SE
  • Other locale
More languages
Output format
  • html
  • text
  • asciidoc
  • rtf