Logging: No impact on big floods
October 13, 2005
Deforestation and logging do not increase the risk of major floods, according to a new report.
The UN's Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) and the Center for International Forestry Research (Cifor) say the evidence shows no link.
Loss of forest cover does play a role in smaller floods and in the loss of fertile topsoil, it says.
It accuses Asian governments of blaming floods on small-scale loggers and farmers to deflect criticism.
Widespread but wrong
The belief that deforestation causes major floods and increases the damage which they do appears to be widespread.
China's catastrophic floods of 1998, when the Yangtse and Yellow rivers broke their banks, were linked to deforestation by Chinese officials, the environmental group WWF and the Red Cross.
Italian politicians made similar statements after mudslides near Naples killed nearly 100 people in the same year.
But the FAO/Cifor report cites evidence from Bangladesh, Nepal, South Africa, Thailand and the US showing that the frequency and extent of major floods has not changed over the last century or two, despite drastic reductions in forest cover.
"I think the belief comes about because forests do help to reduce floods in small areas, and so people assume it must also apply to severe floods in large areas," said Cifor's director-general David Kaimowitz.
"But our sense is that in general the conclusions of scientific studies indicate that changes in land use and land use cover have only a minor role in large-scale flooding events," he told the BBC News website.
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