Baker, J.C.A., Smith, C. orcid.org/0000-0002-2705-8398, Veiga, J.A.P. et al. (2 more authors) (2026) Quantifying tropical forest rainfall generation. Communications Earth & Environment, 7. 150. ISSN: 2662-4435
Abstract
Tropical forests enhance regional rainfall but a robust analysis of this benefit is lacking. Consequently, the rainfall generating services of tropical forests are rarely accounted for in policymaking. We synthesised observational and model-based values of the reduction in rainfall due to tropical deforestation to quantify rainfall generation. Across these studies, we estimate that each meter squared of forest contributes 240 ± 60 L each year to regional rainfall. The Amazon forest has an even stronger rainfall benefit, with each meter squared of forest contributing 300 ± 110 L each year. Using a simple approach that assumes a constant water unit price, we estimate that Amazon forest rainfall generation is worth US$59.40 per hectare annually and the Brazilian Legal Amazon delivers rainfall generation worth US$20 ± 7 billion annually. Recognizing the economic value of tropical forests’ rainfall provision will unlock crucial investment and transform policy discussions on payments for forest protection.
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| Item Type: | Article |
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| Copyright, Publisher and Additional Information: | © The Author(s) 2026. This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License, which permits any non-commercial use, sharing, 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 you modified the licensed material. You do not have permission under this licence to share adapted material derived from this article or parts of it. 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/bync-nd/4.0/. |
| Dates: |
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| Institution: | The University of Leeds |
| Academic Units: | The University of Leeds > Faculty of Environment (Leeds) > School of Earth and Environment (Leeds) |
| Date Deposited: | 20 Jan 2026 13:01 |
| Last Modified: | 10 Apr 2026 14:48 |
| Status: | Published |
| Publisher: | Nature Research |
| Identification Number: | 10.1038/s43247-025-03159-3 |
| Related URLs: | |
| Open Archives Initiative ID (OAI ID): | oai:eprints.whiterose.ac.uk:236424 |
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