The role of the Earth's natural forests in overcoming the global water crisis

CHAPTER 7.2 THE ROLE OF THE EARTH'S NATURAL FORESTS IN OVERCOMING THE GLOBAL WATER CRISIS

Alexander Alexandrovich STARTSEV,

Doctor of Philosophy (PhD), Professor of the International University of Fundamental Education, Oxford Educational Network, Director of the International Centre for the Promotion of UNIDO Programs and Projects Implementation of the Saint Petersburg State Institute of Technology (Technical University), International Expert of UNIDO

World achievements of scientific thought and the newest technologies strike the imagination with fantastic images of the future world. However, the main blank spot in modern science remains questions about how ecosystems undisturbed by humans are organized — forests, rivers, lakes, bogs, tundra, oceans. Why has life in these ecosystems not been interrupted? Where does freshwater on land come from? Why has the environment remained hospitable to life for hundreds of millions of years? Without answers to these questions of vital importance for civilization, it is impossible to speak with certainty about our future.

Over half a century of intensive scientific research, global satellite and ground-based observation systems have been created and unprecedented data in terms of volume and detail on the state of the environment have been obtained. Analysis of these data revealed the complexity and insufficiency of research into the interrelationship of biogeophysical processes that determine the Earth's climate. The greatest uncertainty turned out to be related to atmospheric moisture. On the one hand, water vapour and cloudiness are the primary greenhouse substances (like carbon dioxide, they redirect thermal radiation back to the Earth's surface, leading to its warming). On the other hand, cloudiness reflects solar radiation back into space, which leads to cooling. Without a reliable assessment of the role of atmospheric moisture, it is impossible to assess the climate impact of excessive amounts of carbon dioxide. Therefore, over the past two decades, it is precisely the phase transitions of water — evaporation and condensation — that have been at the centre of attention of the meteorological community [1].

For centuries, civilization destroyed the natural vegetation cover, primarily forests. Most rapidly, natural forest ecosystems began to be destroyed in the twentieth century, including due to concentrated clear-cutting and forest fires. The predatory destruction of forest tracts accelerated the manifestation of the global water crisis. In the climate agenda, deforestation was originally considered only as an additional source of carbon dioxide emissions (or its sequestration in the event of forest restoration), altering the reflective capacity of the planet. However, accumulated data on the key role of forests in regulating atmospheric moisture indicate a possible underestimation of deforestation and the replacement of natural forests with derivative ones as factors of climate destabilization and freshwater deficit. Long-term observations have shown that on land, evaporation is almost entirely determined by vegetation cover, mainly natural forests. This led to an intensification of further scientific research in this field [2].

Over a quarter of a century in Russia, the well-known Saint Petersburg scientists V. G. Gorshkov and A. M. Makarieva formulated and substantiated two globally significant discoveries:

1. The concept of biotic regulation of the environment and climate, which quantitatively evaluates the stabilizing effect of natural ecosystems on the environment, climate change, and the state of water resources.
2. The theory of the biotic pump of atmospheric moisture, which quantitatively evaluates the role of natural forest cover in transporting atmospheric moisture from the ocean and in the precipitation regime on land.

In the context of the global water crisis, let us consider the second of these discoveries in more detail. In dozens of scientific works by Russian scientists, it has been demonstrated that the condensation of water vapour is the main driving force of the Earth's atmospheric circulation [3].

However, the theory of the biotic pump runs contrary to the traditional paradigm, where kinetic wind energy is generated by a temperature gradient rather than condensation. Many textbooks on meteorology still cite the diagram of the water cycle in nature where ocean evaporation serves as the main cause of atmospheric moisture that condenses in clouds and falls as rain. This traditional diagram completely ignores the role of vegetation and especially of natural forests, which function like gigantic fountains and create winds.

MECHANISM OF ACTION OF THE BIOTIC FOREST PUMP.

Under the effect of solar energy, powerful evaporation (transpiration) of natural forest cover arises, which is an order of magnitude higher than from the exact same surface area over the ocean. Transpiration maintains dense condensation of water vapour over land. Further, water vapour condenses and transitions from the gas phase into cloudiness filled with water droplets, leading to a rarefaction of air in the atmospheric column above the forest. In doing so, ascending air currents arise over the forest. As a result, in comparison with the ocean, zones of lower pressure are formed over forest tracts, which facilitates the drawing in of moist air from the ocean.

Zones of lower pressure draw, like a pump, high-humidity oceanic air inland, which falls as rain, and in winter in northern latitudes falls as snow. The greater part (approximately two thirds) of freshwater precipitated supports the water balance in rivers and wetlands and feeds lakes, ensuring the vital activity of flora and fauna, and also evaporates anew over land. The remaining part of the precipitation in the normal cycle flows down rivers back into the ocean. The entire reserve of moisture on land flows into the ocean in four years. This mechanism, incidentally, explains why rain does not fall over a desert. There is no moisture in a desert, and therefore there is nothing to evaporate. A zone of higher pressure is constantly maintained there in comparison with the ocean, where there is evaporation and condensation of moisture. Thus, wind in a desert always blows from land to sea, but never in the opposite direction.

This simple yet far-reaching physical theory describes how water vapour exhaled by trees creates winds. Thus, the Russian natural boreal forest, stretching for more than 7000 kilometres from Northern Europe to the Far East, represents the most important element of the global biotic forest pump. It supplies freshwater to Western Europe, Russia, Central Asia, Mongolia, and China. Thanks to these boreal forests, winds from the Atlantic cross the continent, carrying moist air across Europe and all of Siberia into Mongolia and China. These winds bring rains that feed the lakes and rivers of Eurasia, the gigantic rivers of Eastern Siberia. These same winds bring moisture to the northern plain of China, the granary of the most densely populated country on the planet. China receives from the west 80 % of its freshwater, and mainly this is Atlantic moisture drawn in by the natural taiga forests of Eurasia. The pathway of atmospheric moisture transport occurs in several stages — cycles of transpiration with accompanying rain — and takes half a year or more. And this phenomenon contradicts previous information that everyone learns in secondary school. The paradox: China is located next to the Pacific Ocean, but the majority of its precipitation is moisture from land far to the west [4].

A natural forest is a complex community of uneven-aged trees and other biological species supporting the operation of the forest: bacteria, fungi, insects, birds, small and large animals. All this intricate activity of the natural forest community has for millions of years been directed primarily at maintaining the stability of the freshwater cycle, without which life is impossible. When destruction of a part of the coniferous forest cover occurs as a result of natural cataclysms (hurricanes, lightning strikes, and others), natural restorative processes (succession) come into play. Such a process is called self-recovery; in natural conditions it takes more than a hundred years [5].

Purposive cutting and burning of forest tracts, fires caused by negligence, and extermination of aboriginal forests lead to a serious disruption of moisture evaporation processes on land. If the areas of destroyed forests are substantial, erosion of low atmospheric pressure zones arises. This leads to an abnormally hot spring and a rainy cold summer. The mechanism of the biotic forest pump transporting atmospheric moisture from coastal marine zones into the interior of the continent becomes poorly regulated (the pump "sneezes"). Anomalous weather phenomena become more frequent, such as droughts accompanied by fires, or catastrophic floods when huge masses of water abruptly arrive on land and inundate settlements, agricultural lands, and other territories, leading to an excess of freshwater that cannot be used and causing catastrophic situations where flora and fauna perish while people are forced to flee.

As a result of anthropogenic destruction of natural forest, the protective natural restorative process is also brought into action. In these cases succession proceeds extremely slowly, over many decades — the entire biodiversity of the natural forest has been destroyed. Deciduous trees on clearings and burnt areas take a long time to establish. They cannot provide the pull of moisture from the ocean in the spring months prior to the emergence of foliage and, correspondingly, a sufficiently high degree of evaporation. As a result — drought deep in the continent and catastrophic floods in coastal regions, where all the moisture that has not penetrated inland accumulates.

Complete destruction of virgin forests blocks the biotic pump under consideration and turns any river basin into desert in approximately several decades. In the past century, dramatic consequences resulting from an acute deficit of precipitation led to the disappearance of the Aral Sea. The basin of the once full-flowing rivers Amu Darya and Syr Darya feeding the sea was left dehydrated [6].

WHAT IS THE VALUE OF NATURAL FORESTS?

In 1986–1997 in the USA in the state of Arizona, a highly instructive scientific research experiment called "Biosphere 2" was conducted. It was the most ambitious biophysical project ever undertaken by the scientific community, costing at that time 200 million dollars (in current prices — more than 1 billion). In 1991, eight scientists entered a sealed glazed structure with an area of 1.3 ha, where they were to remain for two years in isolation from the outside world. Inside the dome, thoroughly recreated diverse ecosystems were presented, including tropical forest, bog, agricultural field, savannah, desert, and an ocean with a coral reef. The bionauts were accompanied in their natural environment by insects, bees and butterflies, fish, reptiles, and mammals, which were carefully selected to support the vital functions of the ecosystem. Circulation of air, water, and nutrients was to take place within the system. Its main purpose was: a) to maintain an atmospheric composition acceptable for humans; b) to be a source of food products for the people taking part in the experiment.

After 17 months, the experiment had to be halted ahead of the planned schedule. Due to a drop in oxygen levels under the dome, the people were already breathing thin air, as if at an altitude of 5300 m above sea level. The first and main lesson: it is impossible for humans to create natural components, as in a natural ecosystem, for any amount of money. The second lesson: a real possibility of sudden dramatic ecosystem changes exists. The natural environment is a non-linear system characterized by preserving dynamic equilibrium under the impact of perturbations, but only up to a certain limit. Thereafter, even small shifts in equilibrium can cause sharp changes that transition the system into a non-equilibrium state with rapid oscillations, which signifies passing the point of no return [7].

An artificial accelerated process of forest restoration resembling the natural one does not justify itself. Artificially planted plantations do not restore or support the normal water cycle. Moreover, numerous examples, especially the failure of artificial greening in China begun 25 years ago, demonstrate that they are unstable and rapidly degrade from drought or pests. All these facts merely confirm the vital necessity of preserving the natural forests still existing on the planet.

Under conditions of increasing worldwide deficit of drinking water, taking into account the key role of natural forests in the sustainable freshwater cycle and for the purpose of effective management of water resources, the following proposals are submitted for consideration and implementation at both the international and national levels:

• allocate and legally establish in countries a new category of forests — climate- and water-regulating forests (slightly disturbed forest territories performing the continental regulatory function of transporting atmospheric moisture from the ocean and the precipitation regime on land);
• develop a new concept for the development of the timber industry complex, taking into account the fundamental distinction between climate- and water-regulating forests, which are subject exclusively to protection and monitoring, and production forests (for industrial and economic purposes);
• completely withdraw climate- and water-regulating forests from any economic activity, including leasing and the currently popular ecotourism; essentially, these forests must become a specially protected prohibited zone over which even light aviation does not fly (with the possible exception of drones with environmentally safe engines for monitoring purposes);
• develop production forests (creation of commercial forest plantations) with artificial and combined reforestation, designed to extract maximum economic returns through intensive forestry based on modern scientific developments in accelerated tree cultivation; in the turnover of plantation forests, apply the principles of the "circular economy" with deep processing, implementing the most advanced technologies (waste-free production, modern biochemistry products) contributing to the intensification of consumer forestry;
• in national and international programmes, provide for the creation of a new research priority: "Forest and water: physical and biological fundamentals of environmental and life sustainability". A multidisciplinary approach uniting specialists from various fields of science (currently working in narrow fields without addressing the comprehensive situation and problems on a global scale) should become the foundation of such scientific research;
• introduce a mandatory educational course in all universities: "Natural science fundamentals of forest and water reserve sustainability in the biosphere", as well as conduct specialized professional development courses and seminars for civil servants, representatives of industrial and business circles to disseminate knowledge about the "technosphere — biosphere" system as part of the competencies of administrative personnel at all levels;
• in the field of social policy: 1) consider the conservation of natural forests a unifying factor in international cooperation; 2) create conditions for involving the expert and civic community in solving the problems of preserving natural forests, monitoring and inspecting their condition, and exchanging experience between regions and countries; 3) ensure the accessibility of comparative observation data for the broad international public;
• in the field of nature-like technologies: 1) development of technologies for substituting wood with other materials, especially in the production of paper and packaging materials; 2) implementation of blockchain technologies for controlling timber turnover and excluding illegal forest exploitation; 3) using the capabilities of information and communication technologies, digitalization, aerospace observation tools to organize continuous monitoring and forecasting of natural forest status using artificial intelligence algorithms; 4) resolving climate change problems with an assessment of the stabilizing potential of the biota and natural forests in such volume that ecosystem capacity suffices to maintain the environment and water balance in a viable state for life;
• in the international dimension, seek recognition of Russia and its mission as an ecological donor and guarantor of climate stability in Eurasia and the world. Russia is a scientific leader in the field of fundamental research on environmental sustainability, the homeland of the concept of biotic regulation of the environment and climate (1995), as well as the global discovery of the biotic forest pump of atmospheric moisture (2005);
• expansion and intensification of international cooperation in the protection of the Eurasian boreal forest belt, since the biotic pump recognizes no state borders and supplies freshwater to all countries of Eurasia, including Russia;
• organization of an international multidisciplinary research centre for boreal forest sustainability on the basis of scientific developments by Saint Petersburg scientists V. G. Gorshkov and A. M. Makarieva;
• utilizing the potential of the Geneva Water Hub, UN structures, and other international associations for cooperation among countries preserving large areas of forests untouched by economic activity, including Russia, Brazil, Indonesia, Papua New Guinea, the countries of the Congo River basin, and Canada. Such cooperation should include measures aimed at halting the exploitation of natural forests and developing commercial forest plantations worldwide.