Advancing the forest and water nexus: a capacity development facilitation guide

This guide seeks to improve the management of forests and trees for the provision of water-related ecosystem services. This can be achieved through an improved understanding of forest-water relationships and of their contribution to water and food security and community resilience, as well as through the inclusion of water considerations in forest and/or land-use planning, and the incorporation of forests as natural solutions to water management. The capacity development programme was designed to be flexible, and is based on the understanding that participants have different sets of skills and knowledge that can be leveraged and repurposed to better address forest-water issues in their forest and tree management activities. The programme promotes an interactive approach to learning, using practical exercises and field activities to build on theoretical knowledge. This guide will support expert facilitators with some natural resource management understanding, and technical forest-water experts with limited training experience in practical settings. It provides learning and facilitation tools and recommended workshop scheduling, as well as background information, key messages, resources and presentations on a variety of topics, including forest-water relationships, the impact of changing landscapes on water, and field studies.