1981年和1982年著名地理学家黄秉维先生先后发表了两篇论文，题目是“确切地估计森林的作用”和“再谈森林的作用”。这两篇论文的发表，促进了关于森林作用的讨论，也促进了有关的实验和理论研究。直到今天，它对于我国的生态、环境建设，特别是在西部大开发中，仍有重要的现实意义。20年来，这个问题的一些方面在中国和世界范围内有了新的进展，而另外一些则仍有待进一步深入研究。其主要进展在实验科学和理论研究上都有体现。新的实验获得了更具有代表性和说服力的数据，而理论研究则把过去的工作作了进一步的梳理，经过细致的深入研究，一些问题也就迎刃而解了。但由于问题本身的复杂性和进行实验的难度，有不少问题的解决仍有待于进一步的研究。

 The famous Chinese Geographer Academician HUANG Bing wei published 2 articles on the role of the forest in 1981 and 1982．These 2 articles had not only promoted the discussion on the role of the forest，but also promoted the research work in this field．Until now they still have their effect of the ecological and environmental reconstruction in China，especially in the development of the western regions of China． In China and in the whole world new progress was witnessed in this field during the last 20 years．The progress was reflected in both experimental and theoretical research． The former has provided more accurate and more credible data， while the latter has made a deeper understanding on the role of the forest，especially on hydrology and climate． Nevertheless， there are still a series of problems awaiting to be tackled because of the complexity of the problems themselves and difficulties in carrying out experiments．