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Moisture recycling and the potential role of forests as moisture source during European heatwaves
Stockholm University, Faculty of Science, Stockholm Resilience Centre. Wageningen University and Research, The Netherlands.ORCID iD: 0000-0002-0075-334x
Stockholm University, Faculty of Science, Stockholm Resilience Centre.ORCID iD: 0000-0002-7739-5069
Stockholm University, Faculty of Science, Stockholm Resilience Centre.ORCID iD: 0000-0001-7335-5679
Number of Authors: 42021 (English)In: Climate Dynamics, ISSN 0930-7575, E-ISSN 1432-0894, Vol. 58, no 1-2, p. 609-624Article in journal (Refereed) Published
Abstract [en]

Heatwaves are extreme weather events that have become more frequent and intense in Europe over the past decades. Heatwaves are often coupled to droughts. The combination of them lead to severe ecological and socio-economic impacts. Heatwaves can self-amplify through internal climatic feedback that reduces local precipitation. Understanding the terrestrial sources of local precipitation during heatwaves might help identify mitigation strategies on land management and change that alleviate impacts. Moisture recycling of local water sources through evaporation allows a region to maintain precipitation in the same region or, by being transported by winds, in adjacent regions. To understand the role of terrestrial moisture sources for sustaining precipitation during heatwaves, we backtrack and analyse the precipitation sources of Northern, Western, and Southern sub-regions across Europe during 20 heatwave periods between 1979 and 2018 using the moisture tracking model Water Accounting Model-2layers (WAM-2layers). In Northern and Western Europe, we find that stabilizing anticyclonic patterns reduce the climatological westerly supply of moisture, mainly from the North Atlantic Ocean, and enhances the moisture flow from the eastern Euro-Asian continent and from within their own regions-suggesting over 10% shift of moisture supply from oceanic to terrestrial sources. In Southern Europe, limited local moisture sources result in a dramatic decrease in the local moisture recycling rate. Forests uniformly supply additional moisture to all regions during heatwaves and thus contribute to buffer local impacts. This study suggests that terrestrial moisture sources, especially forests, may potentially be important to mitigate moisture scarcity during heatwaves in Europe.

Place, publisher, year, edition, pages
2021. Vol. 58, no 1-2, p. 609-624
Keywords [en]
Moisture recycling, Water Accounting Model, ERA-Interim, Europe, Heatwaves, Forests
National Category
Earth and Related Environmental Sciences
Identifiers
URN: urn:nbn:se:su:diva-197408DOI: 10.1007/s00382-021-05921-7ISI: 000684891000001OAI: oai:DiVA.org:su-197408DiVA, id: diva2:1600207
Available from: 2021-10-04 Created: 2021-10-04 Last updated: 2026-01-29Bibliographically 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

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Pranindita, AgnesWang-Erlandsson, LanFetzer, Ingo

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