Forest and water relations in miombo woodlands: need for understanding of complex stand management

Miombo is a significant biome covering about 10% of the African landmass. Climate semi-aridity is the main edaphic determinant. Range of annual rainfall and dry season length is high, but the unimodal rainfall distribution is common for all miombo. Water is increasingly an issue of trade-off between different land uses and increasing demand on biomass production. This review gives a basic description of major components in the relations between tree cover and water in semi-arid landscapes. From this, in lack of relevant research within miombo landscapes, a scientifically based discussion is given on how future uses and management of these complex woodlands could serve in better management of scarce water resources and in what ways more research in these aspects could enlighten this discussion. It is concluded that, like for other semi-arid landscapes, there is need for understanding and developing more complex stand management to optimize biomass production and water use efficiency. At the same time climate change adaptation will add to this need of deepened biophysical process understanding