Introduction

The connection between the loss of forests, land use, streamflow, and water quality has long been recognized. More than 2000 years ago, Plato described a prehistoric Athens where rich and fertile lowland soils were surrounded by wooded hills and rains soaked into upland clay soils and supplied water for rivers and springs. Following the cutting of these mountain forests the springs dried up and floods carried the soil away to the sea “leaving the land nothing but skin and bone” (Plato [c. 427-347

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