Deforestation affects the soil and local climate by reducing the evaporative cooling that takes place both from soil and from plant life. As a result, temperatures rise, leading to increased soil erosion and thus increased runoff of rainfall. At the regional level, the habitat provided by the forest canopy is fragmented by deforestation. Consequently, the species diversity of tropical plant and animal communities in deforested areas is decreasing. Moreover, the aquatic environments in deforested areas have become toxic due to runoff from mining and hydroelectric industries in those areas.
Deforestation can affect both regional and global climate.
One consequence of biomass burning is the release of tiny smoke particles that diffuse into the atmosphere, traveling long distances before settling back to the surface. These particles, called aerosols, can change the amounts of solar radiation reaching the Earth's surface and also return radiation from the Earth back to the surface. This combination of effects can change global temperatures. The smoke particles also can serve to increase the number of droplets in clouds, thereby changing the way that clouds reflect or transmit radiation coming from the sun and from the Earth's surface. It has been estimated that the net effect of these smoke particles is to cause some slight cooling at the Earth's surface.