Plant deciduous trees – for more ground­water and more resilient forests

When we plant deciduous trees together, we do so in monocul­ture conifer forests or in areas of damaged conifer forest that have become ill and died off due to drought and damaging events. As a result, our deciduous tree plantings create drinking-water forests.

A drinking-water forest…

is a former conifer forest that has been converted into a climate-resilient mixed deciduous forest through deciduous tree planting. A drinking-water forest converted in this way can improve ground­water recharge—according to available studies and climate modelling—by 500,000 to up to 1,200,000 litres per year and per hectare..

Because a large propor­tion of our drinking water is drawn from ground­water, which is formed by rainfall—almost half—captured and stored in our forests, our drinking-water forests are extre­mely important. For example, one hectare of drinking-water forest can supply 450 to 1,100 people for a year with 3 litres of drinking water per day—families, neigh­bours, children, friends and staff who depend on it every day.

Mixed deciduous forests have many advan­tages: they are considered climate-resilient and because they can store rainwater better, they are more resistant to drought. They cool better on hot days, as does the surroun­ding area. They provide habitat for more species, improve humus forma­tion and minimise damage events, since the risk is distri­buted across diffe­rent tree species and the balance between pests and benefi­cial organisms is improved through greater biodi­ver­sity. And they provide us with timber.

This is how the deciduous trees we plant together can protect our most important liveli­hoods.