Abstract
Land use and land cover changes have substantial effects on the terrestrial water cycle, but their sign and magnitude remain elusive at large scales. State-of-the-art Earth system models disagree on how these changes affect terrestrial evapotranspiration. Here we use the observation-based transpiration-specific Bowen ratio to correct modelled evapotranspiration changes induced by land use and land cover changes globally and regionally within a hierarchical emergent constraint framework. We show that the constraint reverses the sign of the original model estimates at the global scale and over Central and South America, and narrows the inter-model spread. The misrepresentation of transpiration-specific Bowen ratio and its variations across plant functional types in models is the main source of this bias. Applying an analogous constraint framework to a future afforestation scenario, the constrained simulations project stronger evapotranspiration enhancements and weaker decreases in terrestrial water availability compared to the original simulations, particularly in tropics and subtropics.
Similar content being viewed by others
Large biases in the frequency of water limitation across Earth system models
Neglecting land–atmosphere feedbacks overestimates climate-driven increases in evapotranspiration
Global water availability boosted by vegetation-driven changes in atmospheric moisture transport
Data availability
All datasets used in this study are publicly available as referenced in “Methods”. Source data are provided with this paper.
Code availability
The custom MATLAB (R2024a) codes written to read and analyze data and generate figures are publicly available at https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.17020036.
References
Luyssaert, S. et al. Land management and land-cover change have impacts of similar magnitude on surface temperature. Nat. Clim. Change 4, 389–393 (2014).
Winkler, K., Fuchs, R., Rounsevell, M. & Herold, M. Global land use changes are four times greater than previously estimated. Nat. Commun. 12, 2501 (2021).
Piao, S. et al. Changes in climate and land use have a larger direct impact than rising CO2 on global river runoff trends. Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA 104, 15242–15247 (2007).
Sterling, S., Ducharne, A. & Polcher, J. The impact of global land-cover change on the terrestrial water cycle. Nat. Clim. Change 3, 385–390 (2013).
Ellison, D. et al. Trees, forests and water: cool insights for a hot world. Glob. Environ. Change 43, 51–61 (2017).
Ellison, D., Pokorný, J. & Wild, M. Even cooler insights: on the power of forests to (water the Earth and) cool the planet. Glob. Change Biol. 30, e17195 (2024).
Wang, Y. et al. Soil moisture decline in China’s monsoon loess critical zone: more a result of land-use conversion than climate change. Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA 121, e2322127121 (2024).
Yang, Y. et al. Evapotranspiration on a greening Earth. Nat. Rev. Earth Environ. 4, 626–641 (2023).
Tang, T., Ge, J., Cao, J. & Shi, H. Land water availability altered by historical land use and land cover change. npj Clim. Atmos. Sci. 8, 230 (2025).
Staal, A. et al. Forest-rainfall cascades buffer against drought across the Amazon. Nat. Clim. Change 8, 539–543 (2018).
Shi, H. et al. Terrestrial biodiversity threatened by increasing global aridity velocity under high-level warming. Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA 118, e2015552118 (2021).
Humphrey, V. et al. Sensitivity of atmospheric CO2 growth rate to observed changes in terrestrial water storage. Nature 560, 628–631 (2018).
Chen, Z., Wang, W., Forzieri, G. & Cescatti, A. Transition from positive to negative indirect CO2 effects on the vegetation carbon uptake. Nat. Commun. 15, 1500 (2024).
Schewe, J. et al. Multimodel assessment of water scarcity under climate change. Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA 111, 3245–3250 (2014).
Grassi, G. et al. Reconciling global-model estimates and country reporting of anthropogenic forest CO2 sinks. Nat. Clim. Change 8, 914–920 (2018).
Xu, H., Yue, C., Zhang, Y., Liu, D. & Piao, S. Forestation at the right time with the right species can generate persistent carbon benefits in China. Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA 120, e2304988120 (2023).
Ellison, D., Futter, M. & Bishop, K. On the forest cover–water yield debate: from demand- to supply-side thinking. Glob. Change Biol. 18, 797–1196 (2012).
Hoek van Dijke, A. et al. Shifts in regional water availability due to global tree restoration. Nat. Geosci. 15, 363–368 (2022).
Zhou, G. et al. Global pattern for the effect of climate and land cover on water yield. Nat. Commun. 6, 5918 (2015).
Feng, X. et al. Revegetation in China’s Loess Plateau is approaching sustainable water resource limits. Nat. Clim. Change 6, 1019–1022 (2016).
Ceballos-Barbancho, A., Morán-Tejeda, E., Luengo-Ugidos, M. & Llorente-Pinto, J. Water resources and environmental change in a Mediterranean environment: the south-west sector of the Duero river basin (Spain). J. Hydrol. 351, 126–138 (2008).
Zhou, G. et al. Forest recovery and river discharge at the regional scale of Guangdong Province, China. Water Resour. Res. 46, W09503 (2010).
Zhang, B., Tian, L., Yang, Y. & He, X. Revegetation does not decrease water yield in the Loess Plateau of China. Geophys. Res. Lett. 49, e2022GL098025 (2022).
Brown, A., Zhang, L., McMahon, T., Western, A. & Vertessy, R. A review of paired catchment studies for determining changes in water yield resulting from alterations in vegetation. J. Hydrol. 310, 26–61 (2005).
Zhang, M. et al. A global review on hydrological responses to forest change across multiple spatial scales: importance of scale, climate, forest type and hydrological regime. J. Hydrol. 546, 44–59 (2017).
Buechel, M., Slater, L. & Dadson, S. Hydrological impact of widespread afforestation in Great Britain using a large ensemble of modelled scenarios. Commun. Earth. Environ. 3, 6 (2022).
Wang, D. & Zeng, Z. Urgent need to improve modelled sensitivity of evaporation to vegetation change. Nat. Water 2, 211–214 (2024).
Rodell, M. & Reager, J. Water cycle science enabled by the GRACE and GRACE-FO satellite missions. Nat. Water 1, 47–59 (2023).
Chen, L. & Dirmeyer, P. Reconciling the disagreement between observed and simulated temperature responses to deforestation. Nat. Commun. 11, 202 (2020).
Alkama, R. et al. Vegetation-based climate mitigation in a warmer and greener World. Nat. Commun. 13, 606 (2022).
Bonan, G. & Doney, S. Climate, ecosystems, and planetary futures: the challenge to predict life in Earth system models. Science 359, eaam8328 (2018).
Zeng, Z. et al. Impact of Earth greening on the terrestrial water cycle. J. Clim. 31, 2633–2650 (2018).
Duveiller, G. et al. Biophysics and vegetation cover change: a process-based evaluation framework for confronting land surface models with satellite observations. Earth Syst. Sci. Data 10, 1265–1279 (2018).
Forzieri, G. et al. Evaluating the interplay between biophysical processes and leaf area changes in land surface models. J. Adv. Model. Earth Syst. 10, 1102–1126 (2018).
Gentine, P. et al. Coupling between the terrestrial carbon and water cycles—a review. Environ. Res. Lett. 14, 083003 (2019).
Green, J. et al. Large influence of soil moisture on long-term terrestrial carbon uptake. Nature 565, 476–479 (2019).
Bowman, K., Cressie, N., Qu, X. & Hall, A. hierarchical statistical framework for emergent constraints: application to snow-albedo feedback. Geophys. Res. Lett. 45, 13050–13059 (2018).
Eyring, V. et al. Overview of the Coupled Model Intercomparison Project Phase 6 (CMIP6) experimental design and organization. Geosci. Model Dev. 9, 1937–1958 (2016).
Iturbide, M. et al. An update of IPCC climate reference regions for subcontinental analysis of climate model data: definition and aggregated datasets. Earth Syst. Sci. Data 12, 2959–2970 (2020).
Lawrence, D. et al. The Land Use Model Intercomparison Project (LUMIP) contribution to CMIP6: rationale and experimental design. Geosci. Model Dev. 9, 2973–2998 (2016).
Hurtt, G. et al. Harmonization of global land use change and management for the period 850-2100 (LUH2) for CMIP6. Geosci. Model Dev. 13, 5425–5464 (2020).
Danabasoglu, G. et al. The Community Earth System Model Version 2 (CESM2). J. Adv. Model. Earth Syst. 12, e2019MS001916 (2020).
Sellar, A. et al. Implementation of U.K. Earth system models for CMIP6. J. Adv. Model. Earth Syst. 12, e2019MS001946 (2020).
Wei, Z. et al. Revisiting the contribution of transpiration to global terrestrial evapotranspiration. Geophys. Res. Lett. 44, 2792–2801 (2017).
Miralles, D. et al. Global land-surface evaporation estimated from satellite-based observations. Hydrol. Earth Syst. Sci. 15, 453–469 (2011).
Mianabadi, A., Coenders-Gerrits, M., Shirazi, P., Ghahraman, B. & Alizadeh, A. A global Budyko model to partition evaporation into interception and transpiration. Hydrol. Earth Syst. Sci. 23, 4983–5000 (2019).
Zhang, X. et al. Greening-induced increase in evapotranspiration over Eurasia offset by CO2-induced vegetational stomatal closure. Environ. Res. Lett. 16, 124008 (2021).
Compo, G. et al. The twentieth century reanalysis project. Q. J. R. Meteorol. Soc. 137, 1–28 (2011).
Muñoz Sabater, J. ERA5-Land monthly averaged data from 1950 to present [Data set]. Copernicus Climate Change Service (C3S) Climate Data Store (CDS). https://doi.org/10.24381/cds.68d2bb30 (2019).
Hall, A., Cox, P., Huntingford, C. & Klein, S. Progressing emergent constraints on future climate change. Nat. Clim. Change 9, 269–278 (2019).
Boisier, J., de Noblet-Ducoudré, N. & Ciais, P. Historical land-use-induced evapotranspiration changes estimated from present-day observations and reconstructed land-cover maps. Hydrol. Earth Syst. Sci. 18, 3571–3590 (2014).
Duveiller, G., Hooker, J. & Cescatti, A. The mark of vegetation change on Earth’s surface energy balance. Nat. Commun. 9, 679 (2018).
Curtis, P. et al. Classifying drivers of global forest loss. Science 361, 1108–1111 (2018).
Nelson, J. et al. Ecosystem transpiration and evaporation: insights from three water flux partitioning methods across FLUXNET sites. Glob. Change Biol. 26, 6916–6930 (2020).
Pastorello, G. et al. The FLUXNET2015 dataset and the ONEFlux processing pipeline for eddy covariance data. Sci. Data 7, 225 (2020).
Cox, P. et al. Sensitivity of tropical carbon to climate change constrained by carbon dioxide variability. Nature 494, 341–344 (2013).
Winkler, A., Myneni, R., Alexandrov, G. & Brovkin, V. Earth system models underestimate carbon fixation by plants in the high latitudes. Nat. Commun. 10, 885 (2019).
Nosetto, M., Jobbágy, E., Brizuela, A. & Jackson, R. The hydrologic consequences of land cover change in central Argentina. Agric. Ecosyst. Environ. 154, 2–11 (2012).
Doelman, J. et al. Exploring SSP land-use dynamics using the IMAGE model: regional and gridded scenarios of land-use change and land-based climate change mitigation. Glob. Environ. Change 48, 119–135 (2018).
Ning, T. et al. Effects of forest cover change on catchment evapotranspiration variation in China. Hydrol. Process. 34, 2219–2228 (2020).
Teuling, A. et al. Climate change, reforestation/afforestation, and urbanization impacts on evapotranspiration and streamflow in Europe. Hydrol. Earth Syst. Sci. 23, 3631–3652 (2019).
Ukkola, A. et al. Reduced streamflow in water-stressed climates consistent with CO2 effects on vegetation. Nat. Clim. Change 6, 75–78 (2016).
O’Conner, J. et al. Forests buffer against variations in precipitation. Glob. Change Biol. 27, 4686–4696 (2021).
Humphrey, V. et al. Soil moisture–atmosphere feedback dominates land carbon uptake variability. Nature 592, 65–69 (2021).
McKay, D. et al. Exceeding 1.5 °C global warming could trigger multiple climate tipping points. Science 377, eabn7950 (2022).
Zeng, Z. et al. Climate mitigation from vegetation biophysical feedbacks during the past three decades. Nat. Clim. Change 7, 432–436 (2017).
Lian, X. et al. Partitioning global land evapotranspiration using CMIP5 models constrained by observations. Nat. Clim. Change 8, 640–646 (2018).
Forzieri, G. et al. Increased control of vegetation on global terrestrial energy fluxes. Nat. Clim. Change 10, 356–362 (2020).
Chen, Z., Wang, W., Cescatti, A. & Forzieri, G. Climate-driven vegetation greening further reduces water availability in drylands. Glob. Change Biol. 29, 1628–1647 (2023).
Alkama, R. & Cescatti, A. Biophysical climate impacts of recent changes in global forest cover. Science 351, 6273 (2016).
Schlesinger, W. & Jasechko, S. Transpiration in the global water cycle. Agric. For. Meteorol. 189-190, 115–117 (2014).
Yuan, K. et al. Deforestation reshapes land-surface energy-flux partitioning. Environ. Res. Lett. 16, 024014 (2021).
McDermid, S., Mearns, L. & Ruane, A. Representing agriculture in Earth system models: approaches and priorities for development. J. Adv. Model. Earth Syst. 9, 2230–2265 (2017).
Chen, L., Dirmeyer, P., Guo, Z. & Schultz, N. Pairing FLUXNET sites to validate model representations of land-use/land-cover change. Hydrol. Earth Syst. Sci. 22, 111–125 (2018).
Liu, H. et al. Nature-based framework for sustainable afforestation in global drylands under changing climate. Glob. Change Biol. 28, 2202–2220 (2022).
van der Ent, R., Savenije, H., Schaefli, B. & Steele-Dunne, S. Origin and fate of atmospheric moisture over continents. Water Resour. Res. 46, W09525 (2010).
Zan, B. et al. Spatiotemporal inequality in land water availability amplified by global tree restoration. Nat. Water 2, 863–874 (2024).
Wang, S. et al. Recent global decline of CO2 fertilization effects on vegetation photosynthesis. Science 370, 1295–1300 (2020).
Fu, Z. et al. Atmospheric dryness reduces photosynthesis along a large range of soil water deficits. Nat. Commun. 13, 989 (2022).
IPCC. Climate Change 2021: The Physical Basis. Contribution of Working Group I to the Sixth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (Cambridge University Press, 2021).
Friedlingstein, P. et al. Global carbon budget 2023. Earth Syst. Sci. Data 15, 5301–5369 (2023).
Doelman, J. et al. Afforestation for climate change mitigation: potentials, risks and trade-offs. Glob. Change Biol. 26, 1576–1591 (2020).
Windisch, M., Davin, E. & Seneviratne, S. Prioritizing forestation based on biogeochemical and local biogeophysical impacts. Nat. Clim. Change 11, 867–871 (2021).
Popp, A. et al. Land-use futures in the shared socio-economic pathways. Glob. Environ. Change 42, 331–345 (2017).
Pan, S. et al. Evaluation of global terrestrial evapotranspiration using state-of-the-art approaches in remote sensing, machine learning and land surface modeling. Hydrol. Earth Syst. Sci. 24, 1485–1509 (2020).
Collins, W. et al. AerChemMIP: quantifying the effects of chemistry and aerosols in CMIP6. Geosci. Model Dev. 10, 585–607 (2017).
Klein Goldewijk, K., Beusen, A., Doelman, J. & Stehfest, E. Anthropogenic land use estimates for the Holocene – HYDE 3.2. Earth Syst. Sci. Data 9, 927–953 (2017).
Martens, B. et al. GLEAM v3: satellite-based land evaporation and root-zone soil moisture. Geosci. Model Dev. 10, 1903–1925 (2017).
Jung, M. et al. The FLUXCOM ensemble of global land-atmosphere energy fluxes. Sci. Data 6, 74 (2019).
Zhou, S., Yu, B., Zhang, Y., Huang, Y. & Wang, G. Partitioning evapotranspiration based on the concept of underlying water use efficiency: ET partitioning. Water Resour. Res. 52, 1160–1175 (2016).
Perez-Priego, O. et al. Partitioning eddy covariance water flux components using physiological and micrometeorological approaches. J. Geophys. Res. Biogeosci. 123, 3353–3370 (2018).
Nelson, J. et al. Coupling water and carbon fluxes to constrain estimates of transpiration: the TEA algorithm. J. Geophys. Res. Biogeosci. 123, 3617–2632 (2018).
Boysen, L. et al. Global climate response to idealized deforestation in CMIP6 models. Biogeosciences 17, 5615–5638 (2020).
Luo, X. et al. The biophysical impacts of deforestation on precipitation: results from the CMIP6 model intercomparison. J. Clim. 35, 3293–3311 (2022).
Li, Y. et al. Deforestation-induced climate change reduces carbon storage in remaining tropical forests. Nat. Commun. 13, 1964 (2022).
Eyring, V. et al. Taking climate model evaluation to the next level. Nat. Clim. Change 9, 102–110 (2019).
Winkler, A., Myneni, R. & Brovkin, V. Investigating the applicability of emergent constraints. Earth Syst. Dynam. 10, 501–523 (2019).
Keenan, T. et al. A constraint on historic growth in global photosynthesis due to rising CO2. Nat. Clim. Change 13, 1376–1381 (2023).
Clark, M. et al. Improving the representation of hydrologic processes in Earth system models. Water Resour. Res. 51, 5929–5956 (2015).
McDowell, N. et al. Pervasive shifts in forest dynamics in a changing world. Science 368, 964 (2020).
Chen, Z. et al. Observationally constrained projection of Afro-Asian monsoon precipitation. Nat. Commun. 13, 2552 (2022).
Shiogama, H., Watanabe, M., Kim, H. & Hirota, N. Emergent constraints on future precipitation changes. Nature 602, 612–616 (2022).
Dai, P., Nie, J., Yu, Y. & Wu, R. Constraints on regional projections of mean and extreme precipitation under warming. Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA 121, e2312400121 (2024).
Chen, X. et al. Emergent constraints on future projections of the western North Pacific Subtropical High. Nat. Commun. 11, 2802 (2020).
Wang, T. et al. Atmospheric dynamic constraints on Tibetan Plateau freshwater under Paris climate targets. Nat. Clim. Change 11, 219–225 (2021).
Swann, A., Fung, I. & Chiang, J. Mid-latitude afforestation shifts general circulation and tropical precipitation. Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA 109, 712–716 (2012).
Zhou, S. et al. Soil moisture-atmosphere feedbacks mitigate declining water availability in drylands. Nat. Clim. Change 11, 38–44 (2021).
Fisher, J., Tu, K. & Baldocchi, D. Global estimates of the land–atmosphere water flux based on monthly AVHRR and ISLSCP-II data, validated at 16 FLUXNET sites. Remote Sens. Environ. 112, 901–919 (2008).
Cheng, L. et al. Recent increases in terrestrial carbon uptake at little cost to the water cycle. Nat. Commun. 8, 110 (2017).
Wang, L., Good, S. & Caylor, K. Global synthesis of vegetation control on evapotranspiration partitioning. Geophys. Res. Lett. 41, 6753–6757 (2014).
Pitman, A. et al. Importance of background climate in determining impact of land-cover change on regional climate. Nat. Clim. Change 1, 472–475 (2011).
Zeng, Z. et al. Deforestation-induced warming over tropical mountain regions regulated by elevation. Nat. Geosci. 14, 23–29 (2021).
Acknowledgements
This work has received funding from the European Union’s Horizon Europe research and innovation programme under the Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions (grant agreement No. 101152010, TYPIC). Views and opinions expressed are, however, those of the author(s) only and do not necessarily reflect those of the European Union. Neither the European Union nor the granting authority can be held responsible for them. This is ClimTip contribution #89; the ClimTip project has received funding from the European Union’s Horizon Europe research and innovation programme under grant agreement No. 101137601. R.X. was supported by the Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities (grant agreement No. B240207078) and China Scholarship Council (CSC) Grant (grant agreement No. 202406710180). Furthermore, we thank Dr. Zhongwang Wei (Sun Yat-Sen University) for providing the observational ET dataset derived by LAI-based upscaling. Certain Esri ® ArcGIS ® Imagery in this work are owned by Esri and/or its data contributors and are used herein with permission. Copyright © 2026 Esri and its data contributors. All rights reserved.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Contributions
Z.C. conceived and designed the research; Z.C. and R.X. collected and processed raw data, and implemented the data analysis; A.C. and G.F. contributed analysis ideas; Z.C. interpreted the results and drafted the initial manuscript; A.C. and G.F. provided suggestions and further improved writing. All authors approved the final version of this manuscript.
Corresponding author
Ethics declarations
Competing interests
The authors declare no competing interests.
Peer review
Peer review information
Nature Communications thanks David Ellison and Alexander Winkler for their contribution to the peer review of this work. A peer review file is available.
Additional information
Publisher’s note Springer Nature remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.
Supplementary information
Supplementary Information
Description of Additional Supplementary Files
Supplementary Data 1
Supplementary Data 2
Supplementary Data 3
Supplementary Data 4
Supplementary Data 5
Transparent Peer Review file
Source data
Source Data
Rights and permissions
Open Access This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article’s Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article’s Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this licence, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/.
Reprints and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Chen, Z., Cescatti, A., Xing, R. et al. Emergent constraints on the hydrological impacts of land use and land cover change.
Nat Commun (2026). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-026-69883-2
Received:
Accepted:
Published:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-026-69883-2
Source: Ecology - nature.com
