He thats cool you tweeted about my post, and got a conversation going on (site formerly named)Twitter. My reply to Paul Anderson who said the rain still had to fall in the first place, and so beaver didnt create rain. Is yes that rain fell in the first place unrelated to beavers, but then beavers multiplied that rain. Can you share what your X account is , and give a link?
I'm a regenerative farmer, so I am "pro-nature", for the most part, but you have to keep in mind that alot of the "prime beaver areas" are probably where you, and alot of other folks now live. Most cities originally located along rivers and streams. The railroads, which were incredibly instrumental in the development of most existing cities, also followed our natural waterways, and thereby, much of the natural habitat for beaver was destroyed by this development... YOUR, and OUR development. It's easy to say "Yes, more beavers now!"... as long as you create the habitat for them on someone else's property. But when it's YOUR home that is going to be flooded, or YOUR livelihood that is going to be taken away, you'd probably have second thoughts about that.
Yes we have to consider people have homes where beaver rivers are. Its part of general larger problem, that we have paved over, built over, put houses on plenty of places where we need the water to be running. It requires large scale cultural shift in priorities, and how we can work if we are to start undeveloping. In china they now have 'negative planning' where they start undeveloping land, returning it from houses and pavement back to nature, in order for water movement to return to natural state, so China doesnt flood as much. In the West we may have to look at how we recompense people to move out of floodplains and where rivers once were. Its difficult now because we do not consider it high priority. But once we understand how we are drying up continent and its leading to extreme weather maybe we shift our priorities.
One would assume mans use of fire would clear the natural debris accumulations which also cause overflows across perennial water systems, and there are vastly conflicting views on the use of fire for healthy forests. I have been on at the government for a while in regard to the land clearing and the destruction of the water cycle in Australia and how clearing more land will enhance the VPD and actually make the surrounding landscape and farms less productive. It would be relatively simple while the large machinery for land clearing is in situ for many of the water remediation projects you talk about to be put in place. You may know about https://globalearthrepairfoundation.org/peter-andrews/ It is sad that the government sees much of his work as illegal as they feel they own the rights to the water travelling across your land even though you are doing the work to help with its creation. Thanks again for such timely research.
Yeah debris is not necessarily bad like some people think. It helps rebuild soil for instance. ... Can you explain more about the Vapor Deficit idea? .... Peter Andrews is great.
Peter Andrews talks about leaky weirs, but we can also have leaky dams with something as simple as 19mm poly pipe to slow release water into the system especially in areas of seasonal rain or days before heavy rain events. both these will help lower the VPD and prime the system to absorb more water when it becomes available, through dew creation and reducing the hydrophobic effects of parched soil. May even reduce flooding , another option which is done on large scale but not on small is the use or our creek and river system to transport water for irrigation, farmers can use topographic choke points in the hills to create cost effective small dams to then release water down stream to be extracted for irrigation on the river flats, this helps with the overall stability of the hydrological cycle while increasing agricultural production and reducing the harmful impacts of flooding. Interlocking spurs on perennial creeks offer perfect areas of high structural integrity where much of the structure is already in place and with the cost of water for irrigation always increasing governments could be subsidizing these local initiatives which offer such a broad range of benefits.
Vapor Pressure Differential. Different plants have varying abilities to close the stomata on their leaves and as the temperature rises the space between water molecules expands and as we know systems like to move toward equilibrium so a plant will lose water through its stomata depending on its ability to close this opening and tilt its leaves away from the sun. Some plants which can not move water through their system from the ground fast enough or if the ground does not hold enough water then the plant leaves will die sometimes leading to the death of the plant. We see it in gardening all the time especially with new plantings when they do not have well established roots and are starting to see it more in our forests, Western Australia just went through massive die back due to water shortage and heat related VPD, they are starting to call it the coral bleaching or our forests. When we clear land we increase the temp and therefore the VPD, many of your blogs talk about the effect on rainfall patterns and more recent articles are also talking about decrease cloud cover and increased vapor pressure which effects all the surrounding areas. The heat dome in the SW USA has expanded several hundred KM in every direction over the last few decades especially northward and we are seeing the effects through increased droughts and bushfires, which is a very bad feed back loop. In Australia we have seen evidence of inland rivers and lakes lined with fresh water mussels up to about 40 000y ago but climate change and human impact has turned off the biotic pump which used to drag the monsoon deep into the interior every year and we now have salt lakes and perennial water ways across a very arid interior waiting for irregular floods about once a decade if we are lucky.
Ecosystems are path dependent, meaning once you get to a certain stable state with applied conditions, taking away those conditions does not necessarily get you back to the original state. So its not necessarily reversible. In the case of beavers they brought the forests, but killing the beavers doesn't necessarily destroy all the forest increase. Thats because the forests have created their own stable feedback loop where they create their own rain. Killing beavers probably still lowers the amount of trees a significant amount because there is now less freshwater to evaporate, and less groundwater for the trees to survive. Killing beavers will destroy a lot of wetlands and groundwater. So rainfall will probably decrease from this. There's probably some more investigation needed to be done to see exactly what effect killing beavers will do. I would have to think more about the ecological cascade too that happens, because the introduction of beavers created a cascade of other biodiversity into the land, and some of that biodiversity will stay, and some will leave after beavers are killed.
It makes me wonder how much do manmade dams near the sea contribute to rain. Is it related to the scale ? Or to the ecosystems ? Concrete and steel vs wood and branches ?
We do not have wetlands near man-made dams unless they were already there. Is this the point?
My guess is that man-made dams have caused a huge loss in rain. This is for various reasons. Man-made dams tend to be much larger, and they trap silt and sediment. That sediment cannot then flow down river, and overflow into floodplains during large rains. That sediment could have been otherwise used to grow more trees, which can then transpire more rain. With large man-made dams, you do not have seasonal floods that overflow and then refill the aquifers. Those aquifers are needed for trees to tap into during the dry season for water and transpiration. So each man-made dam leads to vast degradation of land. That means the land cannot absorb as much rain, and the rain turns to runoff instead.
Beaver dams are quite different, they are allow overflow into floodplains during large rains. In fact they create their own natural overflow into adjacent land.
Some of the man-made dam water does go to farms, but those crops are small in comparison o what could be growing. Many farms also over-water and use tile drainage, which then drains that water out to sea. Also a lot of man-made dam water goes to cities which then use that water and flush it out to sea, without it going into ecosystem so it can transpire up.
Thank you for your reply and the brainstorming. It remembers me of the Nile basin that was so green when it was allowed to the river to overflow and carry sediments to the riversides.
So the point is the overflow. In fact, man-made dams should be overflowing at least for their maintenance (accumulation of sediments). It would so also help ecosystems.
yes you are right, upstream dams of the Nile means less water overflowing downstream. That land in Egypt which could have become more fertile, is now more degraded and unable to absorb as much rainfall. Which means there is then less water to transpire southwards to increase the rain to increase the flow of the Nile. So its a feedback loop that creates a multiplier effect of rain loss.
Yes! More beavers now! Re-beaver the planet!
Alpha Lo, I thought you might find this interesting:
Beavers, the small water cycle & atmospheric chemistry.
https://lachefnet.wordpress.com/2024/12/24/beavers-the-small-water-cycle-atmospheric-chemistry/
.....
He thats cool you tweeted about my post, and got a conversation going on (site formerly named)Twitter. My reply to Paul Anderson who said the rain still had to fall in the first place, and so beaver didnt create rain. Is yes that rain fell in the first place unrelated to beavers, but then beavers multiplied that rain. Can you share what your X account is , and give a link?
I saw you had an account there on X, but doesn't look like you have used it recently.
Here's the OP tweet on X. https://x.com/REGENETARIANISM/status/1871442958802674060
So, you're probably better off responding directly to Paul Anderson.
Such beautiful creatures and a some great insights about their importance. We have a couple of beaver families close to our home and are blessed.
Thanks for this fascinating analysis
I'm a regenerative farmer, so I am "pro-nature", for the most part, but you have to keep in mind that alot of the "prime beaver areas" are probably where you, and alot of other folks now live. Most cities originally located along rivers and streams. The railroads, which were incredibly instrumental in the development of most existing cities, also followed our natural waterways, and thereby, much of the natural habitat for beaver was destroyed by this development... YOUR, and OUR development. It's easy to say "Yes, more beavers now!"... as long as you create the habitat for them on someone else's property. But when it's YOUR home that is going to be flooded, or YOUR livelihood that is going to be taken away, you'd probably have second thoughts about that.
Yes we have to consider people have homes where beaver rivers are. Its part of general larger problem, that we have paved over, built over, put houses on plenty of places where we need the water to be running. It requires large scale cultural shift in priorities, and how we can work if we are to start undeveloping. In china they now have 'negative planning' where they start undeveloping land, returning it from houses and pavement back to nature, in order for water movement to return to natural state, so China doesnt flood as much. In the West we may have to look at how we recompense people to move out of floodplains and where rivers once were. Its difficult now because we do not consider it high priority. But once we understand how we are drying up continent and its leading to extreme weather maybe we shift our priorities.
One would assume mans use of fire would clear the natural debris accumulations which also cause overflows across perennial water systems, and there are vastly conflicting views on the use of fire for healthy forests. I have been on at the government for a while in regard to the land clearing and the destruction of the water cycle in Australia and how clearing more land will enhance the VPD and actually make the surrounding landscape and farms less productive. It would be relatively simple while the large machinery for land clearing is in situ for many of the water remediation projects you talk about to be put in place. You may know about https://globalearthrepairfoundation.org/peter-andrews/ It is sad that the government sees much of his work as illegal as they feel they own the rights to the water travelling across your land even though you are doing the work to help with its creation. Thanks again for such timely research.
Yeah debris is not necessarily bad like some people think. It helps rebuild soil for instance. ... Can you explain more about the Vapor Deficit idea? .... Peter Andrews is great.
Peter Andrews talks about leaky weirs, but we can also have leaky dams with something as simple as 19mm poly pipe to slow release water into the system especially in areas of seasonal rain or days before heavy rain events. both these will help lower the VPD and prime the system to absorb more water when it becomes available, through dew creation and reducing the hydrophobic effects of parched soil. May even reduce flooding , another option which is done on large scale but not on small is the use or our creek and river system to transport water for irrigation, farmers can use topographic choke points in the hills to create cost effective small dams to then release water down stream to be extracted for irrigation on the river flats, this helps with the overall stability of the hydrological cycle while increasing agricultural production and reducing the harmful impacts of flooding. Interlocking spurs on perennial creeks offer perfect areas of high structural integrity where much of the structure is already in place and with the cost of water for irrigation always increasing governments could be subsidizing these local initiatives which offer such a broad range of benefits.
Vapor Pressure Differential. Different plants have varying abilities to close the stomata on their leaves and as the temperature rises the space between water molecules expands and as we know systems like to move toward equilibrium so a plant will lose water through its stomata depending on its ability to close this opening and tilt its leaves away from the sun. Some plants which can not move water through their system from the ground fast enough or if the ground does not hold enough water then the plant leaves will die sometimes leading to the death of the plant. We see it in gardening all the time especially with new plantings when they do not have well established roots and are starting to see it more in our forests, Western Australia just went through massive die back due to water shortage and heat related VPD, they are starting to call it the coral bleaching or our forests. When we clear land we increase the temp and therefore the VPD, many of your blogs talk about the effect on rainfall patterns and more recent articles are also talking about decrease cloud cover and increased vapor pressure which effects all the surrounding areas. The heat dome in the SW USA has expanded several hundred KM in every direction over the last few decades especially northward and we are seeing the effects through increased droughts and bushfires, which is a very bad feed back loop. In Australia we have seen evidence of inland rivers and lakes lined with fresh water mussels up to about 40 000y ago but climate change and human impact has turned off the biotic pump which used to drag the monsoon deep into the interior every year and we now have salt lakes and perennial water ways across a very arid interior waiting for irregular floods about once a decade if we are lucky.
Thanks for sharing. And presumably you get the same cascade effect in reverse when they disappear?
Ecosystems are path dependent, meaning once you get to a certain stable state with applied conditions, taking away those conditions does not necessarily get you back to the original state. So its not necessarily reversible. In the case of beavers they brought the forests, but killing the beavers doesn't necessarily destroy all the forest increase. Thats because the forests have created their own stable feedback loop where they create their own rain. Killing beavers probably still lowers the amount of trees a significant amount because there is now less freshwater to evaporate, and less groundwater for the trees to survive. Killing beavers will destroy a lot of wetlands and groundwater. So rainfall will probably decrease from this. There's probably some more investigation needed to be done to see exactly what effect killing beavers will do. I would have to think more about the ecological cascade too that happens, because the introduction of beavers created a cascade of other biodiversity into the land, and some of that biodiversity will stay, and some will leave after beavers are killed.
Many thanks for outlining that, plenty to think about!!
Thank you for this reminder of beaver importance.
It makes me wonder how much do manmade dams near the sea contribute to rain. Is it related to the scale ? Or to the ecosystems ? Concrete and steel vs wood and branches ?
We do not have wetlands near man-made dams unless they were already there. Is this the point?
My guess is that man-made dams have caused a huge loss in rain. This is for various reasons. Man-made dams tend to be much larger, and they trap silt and sediment. That sediment cannot then flow down river, and overflow into floodplains during large rains. That sediment could have been otherwise used to grow more trees, which can then transpire more rain. With large man-made dams, you do not have seasonal floods that overflow and then refill the aquifers. Those aquifers are needed for trees to tap into during the dry season for water and transpiration. So each man-made dam leads to vast degradation of land. That means the land cannot absorb as much rain, and the rain turns to runoff instead.
Beaver dams are quite different, they are allow overflow into floodplains during large rains. In fact they create their own natural overflow into adjacent land.
Some of the man-made dam water does go to farms, but those crops are small in comparison o what could be growing. Many farms also over-water and use tile drainage, which then drains that water out to sea. Also a lot of man-made dam water goes to cities which then use that water and flush it out to sea, without it going into ecosystem so it can transpire up.
Thank you for your reply and the brainstorming. It remembers me of the Nile basin that was so green when it was allowed to the river to overflow and carry sediments to the riversides.
So the point is the overflow. In fact, man-made dams should be overflowing at least for their maintenance (accumulation of sediments). It would so also help ecosystems.
yes you are right, upstream dams of the Nile means less water overflowing downstream. That land in Egypt which could have become more fertile, is now more degraded and unable to absorb as much rainfall. Which means there is then less water to transpire southwards to increase the rain to increase the flow of the Nile. So its a feedback loop that creates a multiplier effect of rain loss.