Comment on “The global tree restoration potential”

Veldman, Joseph W.; Aleman, Julie C.; Alvarado, Swanni T.; Anderson, T. Michael; Archibald, Sally; Bond, William J.; Boutton, Thomas W.; Buchmann, Nina; Buisson, Élise; Canadell, Josep G.; Dechoum, Michele de Sá; Díaz‐Toribio, Milton H.; Durigan, Giselda; Ewel, John J.; Fernándes, G. Wilson; Fidelis, Alessandra; Fleischman, Forrest; Good, Stephen P.; Griffith, David R.; Hermann, Julia‐Maria; Hoffmann, William A.; Stradic, Soizig Le; Lehmann, Caroline E. R.; Mahy, Grégory; Nerlekar, Ashish N.; Nippert, Jesse B.; Noss, Reed F.; Osborne, Colin P.; Overbeck, Gerhard Ernst; Parr, Catherine L.; Pausas, Juli G.; Pennington, R. Toby; Perring, Michael P.; Putz, Francis E.; Ratnam, Jayashree; Sankaran, Mahesh; Schmidt, Isabel Belloni; Schmitt, Christine B.; Silveira, Fernando A. O.; Staver, A. Carla; Stevens, Nicola; Still, Christopher J.; Strömberg, Caroline A.E.; Temperton, Vicky M.; Varner, J. Morgan; Zaloumis, Nicholas P.

doi:10.1126/science.aay7976

Cited by 237 publications

(160 citation statements)

References 20 publications

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“…For instance, afforestation entails a drop in albedo in high latitudes, which enhances warming (Lewis et al ). Veldman et al () argues against the afforestation of sparsely wooded ecosystems, such as savannas, as it would likely cause biodiversity loss. Our findings highlight that drylands with coarse soil texture are especially weak candidates for climate mitigation by afforestation, but if land managers decide for afforestation anyway, trees with short annual canopy lifetime should be chosen.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Underground deserts below fertility islands? Woody species desiccate lower soil layers in sandy drylands

Tölgyesi

Török²,

Hábenczyus

et al. 2020

Ecography

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Woody plants in water-limited ecosystems affect their environment on multiple scales: locally, natural stands can create islands of fertility for herb layer communities compared to open habitats, but afforestation has been shown to negatively affect regional water balance and productivity. Despite these contrasting observations, no coherent multiscale framework has been developed for the environmental effects of woody plants in water-limited ecosystems. To link local and regional effects of woody species in a spatially explicit model, we simultaneously measured site conditions (microclimate, nutrient availability and topsoil moisture) and conditions of regional relevance (deeper soil moisture), in forests with different canopy types (long, intermediate and short annual lifetime) and adjacent grasslands in sandy drylands. All types of forests ameliorated site conditions compared to adjacent grasslands, although natural stands did so more effectively than managed ones. At the same time, all forests desiccated deeper soil layers during the vegetation period, and the longer the canopy lifetime, the more severe the desiccation in summer and more delayed the recharge after the active period of the canopy. We conclude that the site-scale environmental amelioration brought about by woody species is bound to co-occur with the desiccation of deeper soil layers, leading to deficient ground water recharge. This means that the cost of creating islands of fertility for sensitive herb layer organisms is an inevitable negative impact on regional water balance. The canopy type or management intensity of the forests affects the magnitude but not the direction of these effects. The outlined framework of the effects of woody species should be considered for the conservation, restoration or profit-oriented use of forests as well as in forest-based carbon sequestration and soil erosion control projects in water-limited ecosystems.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Underground deserts below fertility islands? Woody species desiccate lower soil layers in sandy drylands

Tölgyesi

Török²,

Hábenczyus

et al. 2020

Ecography

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“…Reforestation can both sequester carbon and have benefits for adaptation, including increased rainfall infiltration into soil (45,46), floodwater impedance (44), and provision of shade (31). Restoring savannas, by removing trees, reseeding grasslands, and reinstating natural fire regimes (47), increases resilience, supports carbon storage in soils (48), protects water resources (49), and reduces the risk of catastrophic fires (50).…”

Section: Synergiesmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…An important current concern is tree planting in inappropriate places. Although reforestation of formerly forested land can bring great benefits for adaptation, mitigation, and biodiversity, tree planting in other places can cause serious problems and can even exacerbate climate change impacts (48). Naturally open ecosystems are uniquely adapted to local conditions.…”

Section: Conflictsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Measuring the success of climate change adaptation and mitigation in terrestrial ecosystems

Morecroft

Duffield

Harley³

et al. 2019

Science

Self Cite

126

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Natural and seminatural ecosystems must be at the forefront of efforts to mitigate and adapt to climate change. In the urgency of current circumstances, ecosystem restoration represents a range of available, efficient, and effective solutions to cut net greenhouse gas emissions and adapt to climate change. Although mitigation success can be measured by monitoring changing fluxes of greenhouse gases, adaptation is more complicated to measure, and reductions in a wide range of risks for biodiversity and people must be evaluated. Progress has been made in the monitoring and evaluation of adaptation and mitigation measures, but more emphasis on testing the effectiveness of proposed strategies is necessary. It is essential to take an integrated view of mitigation, adaptation, biodiversity, and the needs of people, to realize potential synergies and avoid conflict between different objectives.

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“…On the other hand, each of the compensation options can be critically assessed regarding their risks and possible counteracting factors compromising their storage potential [21,22] (e.g., for the ambivalence of biomass production as one part of BECCS, see [23] or regarding large-scale afforestation see [24][25][26][27][28][29]). In this paper, we focus on a critical assessment of geoengineering in the narrower sense of the definition given above.…”

Section: Introduction and Scope Of The Papermentioning

confidence: 99%

Human Rights and Precautionary Principle: Limits to Geoengineering, SRM, and IPCC Scenarios

Wieding¹,

Stubenrauch

Ekardt

2020

Sustainability

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: Most scenarios on instruments limiting global warming in line with the 1.5 °C temperature limit of the Paris Agreement rely on overshooting the emissions threshold, thus requiring the application of negative emission technologies later on. Subsequently, the debate on carbon dioxide removal (CDR) and solar radiation management (SRM) (frequently subsumed under “geoengineering”) has been reinforced. Yet, it does not determine normatively whether those are legally valid approaches to climate protection. After taking a closer look at the scope of climate scenarios and SRM methods compiling current research and opinions on SRM, this paper analyses the feasibility of geoengineering and of SRM in particular under international law. It will be shown that from the perspective of human rights, the Paris Agreement, and precautionary principle the phasing-out of fossil fuels and the reduction in consumption of livestock products as well as nature-based approaches such as sustainable—and thus climate and biodiversity-smart—forest, peatland, and agricultural management strongly prevail before geoengineering and atmospheric SRM measures in particular. However, as all of the atmospheric SRM methods are in their development phase, governance options to effectively frame further exploration of SRM technologies are proposed, maintaining that respective technologies thus far are not a viable means of climate protection.

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Comment on “The global tree restoration potential”

Cited by 237 publications

References 20 publications

Underground deserts below fertility islands? Woody species desiccate lower soil layers in sandy drylands

Underground deserts below fertility islands? Woody species desiccate lower soil layers in sandy drylands

Measuring the success of climate change adaptation and mitigation in terrestrial ecosystems

Human Rights and Precautionary Principle: Limits to Geoengineering, SRM, and IPCC Scenarios

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