Fig. 3: Implications of the percentage restored area and the implications for water scarcity.

a, Water availability could decrease in ‘hot spots for tree restoration’. The lower, middle and upper boundaries of the boxes display the 25th, 50th and 75th percentiles of the data (the interquartile range), respectively. The lines extend to a maximum of 1.5 times the interquartile range. b, Water availability will decrease in several regions that currently face water scarcity: the colour indicates whether local water availability will decrease (orange) or increase (blue) following the studied tree-restoration scenario. The cross-hatched regions currently face freshwater scarcity for at least three months per year, and the bold hatched regions face freshwater scarcity for at least nine months per year³⁴. Note that we quantified the change in water availability on an annual timescale. The sign of change could vary seasonally, and water availability could, for example, decrease on a yearly basis but remain equal, or even increase, in the dry season.