The increasing scarcity of environmental resources and competition among forest, water, food and energy coupled with the ever-growing population and climate change pose a serious threat to natural ecosystems. In an effort to provide an integrated approach towards forest conservation as well as energy, water and food security within the broader context of climate change and variability, this study sought to undertake a literature and data review to provide a critical analysis and synthesis of the baseline and trends of the forest- water-food- energy security nexus in East Africa.

The short title of the project is ‘BASIC Cartagena Resilient.’ The report summarizes the second phase of the BASIC project, covering research findings and milestones regarding coastal zones and their vulnerable populations: current rate of sea-level rise; issues of public health in communities; economic valuations of ecosystem services; hypoxic conditions inhibiting the bay’s ecosystem; sanitary conditions inadequate for touristic recreation; and metal concentrations above internationally recommended limits found in the bay’s sediments, fish and human populations (Annex 1.4).

Water quality amelioration is one of the key ecosystem services provided by forests in the catchment areas of water supply systems. In this study, we applied random effect models and the least absolute shrinkage and selection regression method of machine learning to South African panel data to estimate the causal effect of natural forest cover on municipalities’ water treatment cost. We controlled for a range of confounding covariates including other land cover variables including wetlands, plantation forests, grassland, woodland etc.