Green Infrastructure, such as forests and wetlands have been shown through research to create massive ecological benefits for various watersheds management issues. Foresty and Water Management are clearly interconnected. However documenting that connection beyond academia and research is sometimes difficult. Conveying that connection between forests and water management issues is critical to creating more environmentally conscious decision making. Some of these Forest-Water Connections include how forests can reduce downstream flood risk, improving regional groundwater infiltration, or capture sediment from erosion (natural and human-caused).

This proof-of-concept worksample, looks at a a number of natural environmental indicators and calculates an global erosion risk scores (by nation and by watershed). By overlaying that resulting data with WRI's publically available Global Forest Conditions, we can map regions around the global where targeted forest conservation and forest restoration efforts can mitigate risk to watersheds and urban environments.