The Water Bank - Earth's Balance Sheet of Health and Vitality
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- čas přidán 27. 09. 2022
- On planet Earth, fresh water is the source of life on land. How we manage our fresh waters, including the rain, dictates the environment that future generations will inherit.
To easily understand this, we think of the bank of fresh water in the Earth as a bank account. If we're always drawing from our bank account and never making any deposits, we all know how that goes. Eventually something comes up and we need a little extra and it's not there. Then we get into a cycle of increasingly severe and crippling debt. It becomes very difficult to get out of this feedback loop of scarcity.
In contrast, if we're always depositing more into our bank account than we're drawing from it, we also know how that goes. When something comes up and we need a little extra, we have it on hand in our savings from a year when we had more than we needed.
The same is true for the bank of fresh water in the Earth. But instead of money, it's the productivity, abundance, and health of life on land. The ecosystems that regulate our climate, and the healthy underground aquifers that provide surplus in times of need.
In this video, we take a closer look at this with an agricultural example, two farmers with different water and land management practices, and see how each plays out.
To learn more visit:
community.waterstories.com/
www.waterstories.com/
!!! Awesome!!
Very important information, more people need to know about this.
thank you
Thanks, Zach! Great video and great information for everyone to know! Love you and love your ongoing permaculture work!
Interesting. The crisises going on in the world and increasing expenses are forcing the farm that I am working on to downsize, and that may eventually lead to considering a more conservative approach.
Hi, pretty wonderful graphics! To take this up a nudge, I think it would be great to contextualize this story. It presents a simple idea very clearly, describing the bad water steward farmer with a voice like at a funeral... yet, while this story is relevant in many parts of the world, this story is not very relevant in our temperate landscape. If I knew less, I would be confused or even angry.
I understand that the relevance of the groundwater bank account varies dramatically by region. In our area, most recharge happens during or after winter... so the water cycle disruption during the summer is far less relevant. We actually often don't have much rain throughout summer... Here, the soil's retention capacity, the ability to maintain vegetation healthy in relatively dry conditions, erosion & flooding, and the connection of the living soil layer with atmospheric water is far more important than the groundwater connection.
What I am missing is this nuance about context. I think that our political movement around water cannot win if we don't find ways to discuss complexity of contexts... and how different water problems are throughout the lands. We can simplify more than is useful...
From my understanding, this practice becomes more valuable in areas with lower rainfall, such as your case. Where you could be stashing water for your future use with simple earthworks. Increase the capacity of the aquifer by increasing recharge storage from winter. The context and specific applications to achieve this shift depend on the situation, but if you are interested, there is plenty of content to research even just on youtube. Even Brad Lancaster would be an interesting example even though in a urban/rural context
@@DanSprang42 , fair enough. My point: I know many people who want to 'safe us' from the global water crisis by saving water in ways that is totally out of context. By disrupting circular water flows, or by saving water where it is abundant. In fact, I believe we can use water plentiful in those areas where it is abundant... and concern should be around chemical modifications, and contextual impacts on cycling. Whereas other regions are about gross use, and yet others about moving water availability from one season to another, or between years. So the question always: What characterizes our region's water supply and demand? What are ecological functions of water? This also helps (re)connecting people to their local ecology.
How do we deposit more water into the underground well and Aquifer
Slow, spread, sink the water that flows across your land.
There are different water retention landscapes techniques to achieve this - from bush berms on very steep land, to swales on more hilly land, check dams to slow down small streams and rivers to water retention spaces which look like a pond, but are not sealed off, so that the water can seep into the ground.
beavers
Question: as a deep aquifer depletes of water, my understanding is that the pore spaces collapses and the entire grounds sinks. By pumping water, the elevation of the land subducts. We cannot "replenish" these deep aquifers once most of the pore space is collapsed.
Does it really make sense to talk about replenishing deep aquifers then? Or should we rather talk about deep aquifers as non-renewable resource that, once pumped, seizes to exist?
Mind you, my comment would not refer to the shallow groundwater and vadose zone, but only to pressurized deep aquifers. My understanding is that regenerative practices target this shallow vadose zone, which is part of the small water cycle...
@@harpstone for a lot of people in my area, they trapped the beaver. Beavers are amazing landscaping engineers. I think people just struggle with wet lands versus pasture
Nice work. Turn it into a game. Teach with gaming?
ρ尺ｏΜ𝐎ᔕᗰ 😒