How moisture recycling connects forests, agriculture, and human livelihoods

Research by Focali member Agnes Pranindita, defended, at the Stockholm Resilience Centre her PhD thesis “Moisture recycling in forest-agricultural systems: An interdisciplinary view within and across scales” that  highlights how moisture recycling, the movement of evaporated water through the atmosphere before falling again as precipitation, connects forests, agriculture, and human livelihoods across regions and sectors. Understanding how moisture flows intersect with the trade of agricultural commodities, as well as agricultural livelihoods, provides a new perspective on the interdependence of ecosystems, economies, and societies.

Moisture recycling is a hydrological process in which water evaporates from land or oceans, travels through the atmosphere, and later returns as rainfall elsewhere. Forests play an important role in this cycle. Through evaporation and plant transpiration, forests release large volumes of water vapor into the atmosphere, which can later fall as precipitation in distant agricultural regions.

This process creates a form of atmospheric connectivity between landscapes, revealing that forests function as biodiversity reservoirs and carbon sinks, and also as water regulators for agriculture. As a result, changes in forest cover can have cascading effects on crop production, food supply, and rural livelihoods far from the original site of deforestation.

Recent research demonstrates the magnitude of this dependence. Pranindita’s study published in Nature Water shows that croplands in 155 countries depend on moisture originating from forests in other countries for up to 40 percent of their annual precipitation. Such findings emphasize that forests play a vital yet often invisible role in supporting global agriculture.

Moisture recycling also intersects with the global trade of agricultural commodities. Modern food systems rely heavily on international trade networks. However, these supply chains are indirectly influenced by atmospheric moisture flows linking forests and agricultural areas across borders.

For instance, crop production in one country may depend partly on rainfall generated by forests in another. When agricultural commodities produced in that region are exported to a third country, the trade network effectively transmits the ecological influence of those forests across the global food system.

One example in Pranindita’s research case involves agricultural exports from Ukraine. Crop yields there depend partly on moisture flows originating from forests in Russia. If those forests were degraded, precipitation patterns in Ukrainian farmland could shift, potentially affecting agricultural production and exports to global markets.

Interdisciplinary research

Pranindita’s PhD research represents a truly interdisciplinary effort bridging natural and social science aspects as well as research methods. Her work combines biophysical modelling of moisture recycling with analysis of livelihood strategies and governance options to better understand the interconnectedness of forest, water, agriculture across scales and countries.

The thesis explores these dynamics through several case studies and analytical approaches. Compared to the well-known and more studied moisture flows from the Amazon to agriculture in South America, Pranindita wanted to contribute to knowledge on moisture recycling related to the less studied Congo basin.

During the defence it became clear that understanding complex forest – agriculture – livelihood interconnections require context specific and interdisciplinary social-ecological research. Moisture recycling differs between regions and depends on many factors;  for example, the impacts of moisture recycling downwind can differ between seasons.

Part of the thesis also explores governance perspectives- because moisture recycling is not yet incorporated into an existing land or water governance. One of the articles adopts a speculative approach to capture this complexity and uncertainty, by imagining how atmospheric water flow might be manipulated in the future.

As the main opponent Patrick Meyfroidt stated: the interdisciplinary research conducted by Agnes Pranindita “complexifies” existing research on land-use, highlighting how water is “embodied in trade” across scales and raising questions about how these aspects might be integrated into existing governance approaches.

Implications for governance and policy

Despite its importance, moisture recycling remains largely absent from current land-use and water governance frameworks. Policies typically treat forests, water, and agriculture as separate sectors, overlooking the atmospheric connections that bind them together.

Pranindita’s research highlights the importance of recognizing these connections when developing policies for sustainable land use and food systems. Protecting upwind forests may be essential not only for biodiversity conservation and climate mitigation, but also for safeguarding rainfall patterns that support agriculture and livelihoods in distant regions.

Even though the research area is complex with many uncertainties, part of the research clearly demonstrates the scale of these interdependencies. As discussed during the defence, translating such findings into knowledge accessible to policymakers and stakeholders will be crucial for improving the protection of forests that sustain global agriculture. Pranindita’s research also contributed to the report “Climate and ecosystem service benefits of forests and trees for agriculture” launched at COP30 in the heart of the Amazon rainforest – a massive but often undervalued water source that supports agricultural production globally, as well as crop-importing countries such as Sweden.