Dear Colleagues,

Water is an important resource for plant development and forest sustainability. With an appropriate water balance, plants accomplish life processes, such as photosynthesis, allowing them to survive in their given environments and ensuring the continuity of forests. The balance of water is given by the equilibrium between inputs, such as precipitation, and outputs, such as evapotranspiration. In some environments, this equilibrium is maintained throughout the whole year without further consequences on plants. However, in some other environments, the existence of drought periods can alter the plant–water balance by reducing the inputs (mainly caused by a low precipitation), increasing the outputs (for example, due to a high evaporative demand), or both, which could induce a certain water stresses in the plant.

In order to cope with this drought stress, plants have developed a variety of different responses: from those long-term adaptations, such as leaf morphological adaptations, to those short-term responses such as variation in the concentration of compounds. Knowing these responses to drought is of paramount importance in the conservation of a particular species, especially under scenarios of increased aridity predicted by climatic change models. For instance, plant material from populations, better adapted to these near-future projected climatic conditions, could be used in reforestation programs to preserve other populations of the same species less adapted to drought.

This Special Issue brings the opportunity to gather further information about the causes and consequences of altering the plant water balance, together with the investigation of plant responses to cope with drought, both in terms of soil water scarcity and atmospheric dryness.

Dr. Domingo Sancho-Knapik
Guest Editor

Manuscript Submission Information

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Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Forests is an international peer-reviewed open access monthly journal published by MDPI.

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• adaptation
• drougth
• evapotranspiration
• precipitation
• water stress