DOI: 10.5061/dryad.2v6wwpzxm
title: Balancing water yield and water use efficiency between planted and natural forests: A global analysis

description: Climate warming is projected to affect hydrological cycle in forest
 ecosystems and makes the forest-water relationship more controversial.
 Currently, planted forests are gaining more public attention due to their
 role in carbon sequestration and wood production relative to natural
 forests. However, little is known about how the global patterns and
 drivers of water yield and water use efficiency (WUE) differ between
 planted and natural forests. Here, we conduct a global analysis to compare
 water yield and WUE in planted and natural forests using 946 observations
 from 112 published studies. The results showed that global average water
 yield coefficient was 0.29 for planted forests and 0.34 for natural
 forests. Planted forests exhibited lower water yield coefficient
 (p&lt;0.05) in three climatic regions (arid, dry subhumid and humid
 regions), but higher (p&lt;0.01) WUE only in arid region, compared
 with natural forests. Both water yield coefficient and WUE in planted
 forests were significantly lower (p&lt;0.05) than that in natural
 forests for stand characteristic groups (stand density, average tree
 height, leaf area index [LAI] and basal area). Additionally, stand density
 within the ranging between 1000 to 2000 stem ha-1 can maximize the water
 yield and WUE in planted and natural forests. Water yield coefficient in
 planted forests was primarily controlled by the factors related to tree
 growth (i.e. tree height, DBH), while that of natural forest mainly
 affected by stand structure (i.e. LAI, stand density, DBH). WUE in planted
 forest was more sensitive to climate than in natural forests. This work
 highlights the critical role of natural forests in water supply and the
 importance of tree species selection and stand management (e.g. stand
 density adjustment) in plantations in future forest restoration policies
 and climate change mitigation.
description: Peer-reviewed journal articles, book chapters and academic theses
 on water yield in forests published before December 2023 were searched in
 the Web of Science, Google Scholar, and the reference lists of identified
 primary studies or review papers.The keyword combinations in this study
 were (“primary forest” OR “secondary forest” OR “natural forest” OR
 “native forest” OR “planted forest” OR afforestation OR forestation OR
 revegetation OR plantation*) AND (runoff OR “water yield” OR
 evapotranspiration OR streamflow). Forest
 characteristics (stand age [year], DBH [cm], tree height [m], stand
 density [stem ha<sup>-1</sup>], LAI [m<sup>2</sup>
 m<sup>-2</sup>], and basal area [m<sup>2</sup>
 ha<sup>-1</sup>]) and geographical location (latitude [˚] and
 longitude [˚]) were obtained from the cited publications when these data
 are available. Arid index was provided by Global Land
 Data Assimilation System (GLDAS) which was resampled to a resolution of
 0.005°, and is available for download at (https://doi.org/10.11888/Atmos.tpdc.271832). Annual gross primary productivity (GPP) data from 1982 to 2001 was provided by a revised light use efficiency model (EC-LUE model) and is available for download at (https://doi.org/10.6084/m9.figshare.8942336.v3). Annual GPP after 2001 was obtained from the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) MOD17A3HGF V6.1 product (https://doi.org/10.5067/MODIS/MOD17A3HGF.061). To eliminate bias between the two datasets, GPP estimated by EC-LUE model were resampled to ensure that these two GPP datasets had the same resolution (0.005°). Mean annual temperature (MAT) and mean annual precipitation (MAP) were provided by the WorldClim 2.1 dataset at a 10 arc-minute resolution and are available for download at (https://www.worldclim.org/).The average values for the variables of all sites were calculated over a 20-year period (2000–2019).
description: # Balancing water yield and water use efficiency between planted and
 natural forests: A global analysis
 [https://doi.org/10.5061/dryad.2v6wwpzxm](https://doi.org/10.5061/dryad.2v6wwpzxm) ## Description of the data and file structure ### Files and variables #### File: Sun\_et\_al\_GCB\_data **Description:**  ##### Variables * *Variables* * Column A - Sequence * Column B - Citation of reference * Column C - Reference * Column D - Year * Column E - Arid index * Column F -Latitude (°) * Column G - Longitude (°) * Column H - Dominanted tree species * Column I - Leaf form * Column J - Forest type * Column K - Stand age (year) * Column L - Stand height (m) * Column M - Diameter at breast height (DBH, cm) * Column N - Stand density (stem/ha) * Column O - Leaf area index (LAI, m2/m2) * Column P - Basal area (m2/ha) * Column Q - Precipitation (mm) * Column R - Evapotranspiration (mm) * Column S - Mean annual temperature (MAT, ℃) * Column T -  Mean annual precipitation (MAP, mm) * Column U - Water yield coefficient * Column V - Gross primary productivity (GPP, gC/m2/yr) * Column W - Water use efficiency (WUE, gC/kg/H2O) *Tips: (1)The coordinates in this dataset are the locations of species observations as described in cited publications, and measuring hydrology did not threaten tree species. (2)“NA” in each cell represents the missing value. #### File: Sun\_et\_al\_Reference lists of extracted data **Description:** Reference lists of extracted data