regenerative, sustainable and extractive water

I ran across these distinctions between economies in a talk I went to awhile back. An extractive economy takes away from ecology. A sustainable economy lessens the damage to ecology. It focuses on things like reducing and recycling. A regenerative economy helps build back ecology.

We can apply these distinctions to water too. Extractive water takes water from nature, and disrupts the water cycles. Sustainable water works to save water. It might do projects that recycle and clean the waste water of a city so the inhabitants can reuse it. Regenerative water looks at restoring the water cycle. It looks at how restoring nature can lessen droughts, and restore the small water cycle. It looks at how forests can slow wind, so that rain can form easier. It looks at replenishing groundwater and building up the soil to increase the small water cycle. It looks at how land use affects the large water cycle ( the water coming in from ocean to land). It looks at how we can dampen extreme water cycle fluctuations.

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