A special issue of the journal Forests, titled Forest Management and Water Resources in the Anthropocene, examines the interactions between forests, water, climate change, and humans. The issue was developed and edited by U.S. Forest Service Southern Research Station (SRS) scientists Ge Sun and Jim Vose, and covers topics such as soil moisture, wildfire, streamflow, land use, and modeling studies. The special issue includes an article Sun and Vose wrote on how emerging global threats interact with forest water resources and ecosystems.

“Decades of research has provided a depth of understanding on the relationships among forests and water,” says Vose. “However, the rapid changes in climate, disturbance regimes, invasive species, human population growth, and land use expected in the 21st century are likely to create substantial challenges for watershed management.”

The changes have been so swift and sweeping that a number of scientists agree that Earth has entered a new epoch, the Anthropocene. The proposed epoch is dominated by humans, and characterized by human impacts to the environment, including drastic increases in the amount of atmospheric carbon dioxide and subsequent changes in climate.

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So what does this look like? In recent decades, NASA has been tracking the major transformations we’ve wrought via satellite. In its “Images of Change” series, the agency has posted a number of before-and-after images showing the exact same rainforest or glacier or city years or decades apart. The differences are often breathtaking.

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