It’s time to recognize the power of healthy forests in managing global growing flood risk, and to shift towards more sustainable forestry practices and policy.
This call is emphasized by UBC researchers in a peer-reviewed article published recently in the journal Science of the Total Environment.
Dr. Younes Alila, a hydrologist and professor in the faculty of forestry, and his graduate student Henry Pham synthesized decades of hydrology studies and found that many “severely and consistently underestimated” the impact of forest cover on flood risk.
As a consequence, it led to forest management policies and practices that were either unsound or poorly informed.
Read more at University of British Columbia
Image: Flooding in British Columbia's Fraser Valley in November 2021. (Credit: UBC Applied Science)