Forests play a crucial role in clean drinking water

When we think of forests, several incredible benefits may spring to mind. Forests offset greenhouse gas emissions through their natural carbon storage capacity. They provide habitats for wildlife, increase biodiversity, and offer unparalleled recreational opportunities.

In Michigan, forests serve as a vital economic engine that contributed over $26 billion to the state’s economy in 2022.

And now, researchers at Michigan State University are highlighting an invisible standout benefit: these woodlands play an instrumental role in supplying and sanitizing our drinking water.

Unearthing the forest-water nexus

The study was led by Emily Huff, an associate professor in the U-M Department of Forestry, and colleagues Asia Dowtin, Emily Huizenga, and Jo Latimore.

“Billions of people around the world rely on forests to filter and provide clean drinking water,” noted the researchers.

“The immense value of drinking water can be a strong rationale for conserving and sustainably managing forests, however, people are often unaware of this forest ecosystem service of providing clean drinking water which can lead to the service’s degradation.”

Focus of the study

The team set out to investigate how stakeholders perceive woodlands’ ability to provide clean drinking water.

Stakeholders in this study were categorized into seven groups: water consumers, water utility providers, forest landowners, industry partners, policymakers, local governments, and nonprofit organizations.

“Generally speaking, most people understood that where there are forests, there’s cleaner and more abundant water. However, they didn’t make the functional link that conserving forests results in cleaner drinking water,” explained Huff.

This oversight arises due to a lack of awareness about the origin of household drinking water and the significant contribution of woodlands to its cleanliness.

Ecological link between forests and clean water

“The conclusion we came to for why this is, is partly because Michigan is varied when it relates to where water comes from and flows to throughout different watersheds. There’s a huge focus on overall Great Lakes water quality, but maybe less so specifically on drinking water,” said Huff.

Despite the fact that over 150 million people in the U.S. depend on woodlands to filter their drinking water, many remain oblivious to this ecological connection.

In Michigan specifically, 56% of residents rely on surface water for drinking, while the remaining 44% use groundwater, according to the Michigan Department of Health and Human Services.

The state’s vast woodland coverage, therefore, plays an integral role in ensuring the availability and purity of its water supply.

Forests: Nature’s water filtration system

Forests act as a natural filtration system, safeguarding our water in several ways. Their leafy canopies buffer the impact of heavy rain on the forest floor, reducing erosion and thereby limiting the pollution of nearby bodies of water.

As rainwater permeates the soil and becomes groundwater, the forest roots absorb nutrients and filter it further.

“In 2016, we were only a couple years removed from the beginning of the Flint water crisis when drinking water was a crisis in Michigan and something we needed to pay more attention to,” said Mike Smalligan, the Michigan Department of Natural Resources (DNR) forest stewardship coordinator.

Smalligan said he wanted forests and the Michigan DNR to be more relevant to a conversation about drinking water. An initiative called “Forest to Mi Faucet” was created to explain how forests in Michigan protect drinking water.

Forest to Mi Faucet also helps find ways to lower water treatment costs for communities through forest filtration, teaches landowners how to responsibly manage woodlands, and promotes strategic tree planting.

Awareness, action, and conservation

“Healthy forests protect clean drinking water, and healthy forests are sometimes actively managed for forest products,” said Huff.

“There are ways to log forests that are sensitive to water quality and quantity, and at the end of the day, having forests where they are far surpasses any other land use when it comes to water quality and quantity.”

Looking forward, Huff and her team see an opportunity to create a market compensating landowners and forest managers for the water-based ecosystem services their woodlands provide.

“That would essentially mean that money moves from the consumer or utility provider upstream to the forest landowner or manager so that forests are protected via a system where the beneficiaries – the consumers of water – pay forest landowners or managers to keep their lands as forests,” Huff explained.

The study is published in the Journal of American Water Resources Association.

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