It is well documented that human modification of the hydrological cycle has profoundly affected the flow of liquid water across the Earth's land surface. Alteration of water vapor flows through land-use changes has received comparatively less attention, despite compelling evidence that such alteration can influence the functioning of the Earth System. We show that deforestation is as large a dr...

Moratoria on commodities produced in deforestation-risk areas have been shown to be highly effective reducing deforestation within targeted areas. Various studies shown, however, that such policies are prone large local spillover effects, i.e., non-trivial changes (reductions or increases) the amount of just outside direct scope moratorium. Little is known about direction and magnitude effects ...

Deforestation in Myanmar has recently attracted much attention worldwide. This study examined spatio-temporal patterns of deforestation and forest carbon flux in Myanmar from 2001 to 2010 and environmental impacts at the regional scale using land products of the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS). The results suggest that the total deforestation area in Myanmar was 21,178.8 k...

There are concerns that Reduced Emissions from Deforestation and forest Degradation (REDD+) may fail to deliver potential biodiversity cobenefits if it is focused on high carbon areas. We explored the spatial overlaps between carbon stocks, biodiversity, projected deforestation threats, and the location of REDD+ projects in Indonesia, a tropical country at the forefront of REDD+ development. Fo...

The rainforests are the great green heart of Africa, and present a unique combination of ecological, climatic and human interactions. In this synthesis paper, we review the past and present state processes of change in African rainforests, and explore the challenges and opportunities for maintaining a viable future for these biomes. We draw in particular on the insights and new analyses emergin...

Introduction The impacts of watershed deforestation on lacustrine environments can dramatically affect the productivity of the littoral zone and strongly influence sedimentation rates. Many watersheds flowing into Lake Tanganyika (3°18’8°47’S, 29°05’ 31°18’E) from northern Kigoma region, Tanzania are currently experiencing the effects of deforestation to accommodate high human population densit...

Wadler's deforestation algorithm eliminates intermediate data structures from functional programs. To be suitable for inclusion in a compiler, deforestation must terminate on all programs. Several techniques exist to ensure termination of deforestation on all rst-order programs, but general techniques for higher-order programs were introduced only recently by rst Hamilton and then Marlow. We pr...

We offer a nationwide analysis of the initial years of Costa Rica’s PSA program, which pioneered environmental-services payments and inspired similar initiatives. Our estimates of this program’s impact on deforestation, between 1997 and 2000, range from zero to one-fifth of 1% per year (i.e., deforestation is avoided on, at most, 2 out of every 1,000 enrolled hectares). The main explanation for...

Deforestation in tropical regions causes 15% of global anthropogenic carbon emissions and reduces the mitigation potential of carbon sequestration services. A global market failure occurs as the value of many ecosystem services provided by forests is not recognised by the markets. Identifying the contribution of individual countries to tropical carbon stocks and sequestration might help identif...