Forests play a major role in regulating global carbon and water cycling, and land-atmosphere interactions. Global environmental change such as CO2 fertilization, drought, warming, precipitation variability, nitrogen deposition, and disturbances can have a large influence on forest vegetation and soils and thus on energy and carbon and water fluxes across spatial and temporal scales. As global change is expected to accelerate in the future, vegetation is likely to be affected by large-scale tree mortality, vegetation phenology, changes in forest cover and shifts in species composition. In addition, changes in soil stoichiometry and further changes in metabolic activity of influenced microbial community would possibly exert strong feedback on forest vegetation. This session focuses on novel insights on patterns, drivers and mechanisms governing forest carbon and water dynamics. We welcome submissions on dynamics of forest vegetation and soil microbial activities, and their impact on carbon and water fluxes, which conducted through observational, experimental and modeling approaches at local, regional or global spatial scales.