For another example of decentralized water management check out: Rajendra Singh’s organization Tarun Bharat Sangh (https://tarunbharatsangh.in/know/) they have been doing this work for fifty years. It is one of the most inspiring organizations as they not only work with very poor farmers but the majority of the employees come from the villages where the work is done. Their work in Rajasthan led to Rajendra Singh winning the Stockholm Water Prize. Rajendra is also one of Zach Weiss’s mentors. Long story short, decentralized water management works and TBS has decades of proof.
Thank you for this, Alpha. It echoes the situation with ecosystems. Diverse ecosystems are resilient against insects because if one species is under attack, others still grow. Yet reduce the ecosystem to monocrop agriculture and a single insects can wipe out entire crops.
Very grateful for an understandable, science-based approach which works at global, national and bioregional scales. I use your work (and the rest of our New Water Paradigm leaders') to show how our local 'stormwater management' which uses a linear approach (Divert, Direct, Discard) must be shifted to the circular and time-bound mindset of water itself: Slow it, sink it, spread it, store it, share it.
Hi Alpha, hundreds of billions of trees died and AI estimates 2-3 trillion were effected by the super El Nino of 2014-2016, that is a lot of above ground water storage lost to the system, maybe this accounts for the loss as a tree as you know takes a long time to grow to such heights and water holding capacity.
This kind of reporting scares the crap out of me, but I'm thankful you've highlighted it. I tend to think about decentralized water in terms of rethinking our urban landscape with smaller, less centralized wastewater treatment, localized re-use, rainwater capture and use, etc. Your piece broadens my thinking.
On a different tangent, I wonder how agricultural drainage fits into the equation for networked dewatering. Seems to me it probably has measurable impact.
This is so interesting and terrible. I've been looking at old maps of the village I live in. The curving meandering streams have been intensively managaged for the past 500 years. They've been straightened out and now we have one fast flowing narrow and straight stream running all the water away from where it should be to a large open reservoir.
Locally we are using swales and hugelkultur is one of the ways we aid diverse water management, creating big sponges in the ground with all the duff of fallen trees and the effort to reintroduce beavers to help slow down the streams and lead us back to the marshes
Astonishing ! I love your post. The best on internet !
Perhaps our modern water management would cause this water gap but I think the concern is more in the deforestation as you pointed it out slightly here but in extension in another one of your interesting posts.
Thanks for this Alpha. The explosive percolation framing clicked something for me. I have been trying to articulate why the UN water bankruptcy declaration feels structurally irreversible and not just climatically bad. You just named it: we engineered away the slow cycling and replaced it with systems that make losses faster and recovery slower.
The qanat comparison hit close to home. I live in Saudi Arabia, have a PhD in desalination, and published something this week for World Water Day about a 7th century water specification that worked precisely because it was designed for constraint. The mudd and the qanat are cousins. Both are answers to scarcity that centralization made us forget we had.
A mudd is an ancient Arabic unit of measurement, roughly 600ml, traditionally a small copper vessel used for trade and daily life. During the time of the Prophet Muhammad it became the reference amount for wudu, the ritual purification Muslims perform before prayer.
In my article I use it as an analogy for what I call the Mudd Test: every system has a minimum viable amount of any resource that achieves its purpose. Most of us have never measured it because the price signal never made us feel the gap. The mudd is just the oldest proof I found that someone already did.
This is a terrifying observation of changes we are living through. Thanks for summerising it well. I am a water engineer and more on the treatment end of the process. My focus is moving to understand the natural water processes of the world and how our systems first arose. The world will benefit from adopting a slow water movement and working with natural systems. Thanks Alpha for promoting this movement and bringing it to my attention.
This to me makes a lot of sense. I appreciate how you framed the findings as a distillation that is not elementary but is accessible for the average person to understand. I figure nature is creating a work-around (or maybe I just hope she is). Creating sources we are unable to see despite our technological advances.
I've heard people say we have the same amount of water as we've always had. Just last night I was talking to an individual about how in our rural agricultural place, farmers are opening more space to grow hay regardless of the streams running at the borders and edges. I talked about the the cooling factor of these ecozones, the exposure from warming temperatures, last summers drought (though this a good winter). Shrugs of shoulders. Only this moment matters not the implications of our choices.
Not trying to make an analogy per say. I’ve just seen over the years in the hydrogeology/engineering consulting industry how air / water interfaces, especially when they are contained/confined (hidden), can respond to change in unexpected ways.
For another example of decentralized water management check out: Rajendra Singh’s organization Tarun Bharat Sangh (https://tarunbharatsangh.in/know/) they have been doing this work for fifty years. It is one of the most inspiring organizations as they not only work with very poor farmers but the majority of the employees come from the villages where the work is done. Their work in Rajasthan led to Rajendra Singh winning the Stockholm Water Prize. Rajendra is also one of Zach Weiss’s mentors. Long story short, decentralized water management works and TBS has decades of proof.
Yeah Rejendra Singh's work is great. Would be great to have him on the Climate Water Project podcast.
Thank you for this, Alpha. It echoes the situation with ecosystems. Diverse ecosystems are resilient against insects because if one species is under attack, others still grow. Yet reduce the ecosystem to monocrop agriculture and a single insects can wipe out entire crops.
Yeah good analogy
Very grateful for an understandable, science-based approach which works at global, national and bioregional scales. I use your work (and the rest of our New Water Paradigm leaders') to show how our local 'stormwater management' which uses a linear approach (Divert, Direct, Discard) must be shifted to the circular and time-bound mindset of water itself: Slow it, sink it, spread it, store it, share it.
Hi Alpha, hundreds of billions of trees died and AI estimates 2-3 trillion were effected by the super El Nino of 2014-2016, that is a lot of above ground water storage lost to the system, maybe this accounts for the loss as a tree as you know takes a long time to grow to such heights and water holding capacity.
Yeah makes sense that a lot of trees might have died during that process, which then affects future water infiltration into land.
This kind of reporting scares the crap out of me, but I'm thankful you've highlighted it. I tend to think about decentralized water in terms of rethinking our urban landscape with smaller, less centralized wastewater treatment, localized re-use, rainwater capture and use, etc. Your piece broadens my thinking.
On a different tangent, I wonder how agricultural drainage fits into the equation for networked dewatering. Seems to me it probably has measurable impact.
This is so interesting and terrible. I've been looking at old maps of the village I live in. The curving meandering streams have been intensively managaged for the past 500 years. They've been straightened out and now we have one fast flowing narrow and straight stream running all the water away from where it should be to a large open reservoir.
Locally we are using swales and hugelkultur is one of the ways we aid diverse water management, creating big sponges in the ground with all the duff of fallen trees and the effort to reintroduce beavers to help slow down the streams and lead us back to the marshes
Thanks for this, Mr Alpha Lo.
Astonishing ! I love your post. The best on internet !
Perhaps our modern water management would cause this water gap but I think the concern is more in the deforestation as you pointed it out slightly here but in extension in another one of your interesting posts.
Whoa, so interesting. Thank you for sharing this with me so I can understand. Water is life.
Thanks for this Alpha. The explosive percolation framing clicked something for me. I have been trying to articulate why the UN water bankruptcy declaration feels structurally irreversible and not just climatically bad. You just named it: we engineered away the slow cycling and replaced it with systems that make losses faster and recovery slower.
The qanat comparison hit close to home. I live in Saudi Arabia, have a PhD in desalination, and published something this week for World Water Day about a 7th century water specification that worked precisely because it was designed for constraint. The mudd and the qanat are cousins. Both are answers to scarcity that centralization made us forget we had.
https://www.aziulconnections.com/p/the-0-6-liter-water-rule-wudu-water-conservation
Thanks appreciate your note. What is a mudd?
A mudd is an ancient Arabic unit of measurement, roughly 600ml, traditionally a small copper vessel used for trade and daily life. During the time of the Prophet Muhammad it became the reference amount for wudu, the ritual purification Muslims perform before prayer.
In my article I use it as an analogy for what I call the Mudd Test: every system has a minimum viable amount of any resource that achieves its purpose. Most of us have never measured it because the price signal never made us feel the gap. The mudd is just the oldest proof I found that someone already did.
This is a terrifying observation of changes we are living through. Thanks for summerising it well. I am a water engineer and more on the treatment end of the process. My focus is moving to understand the natural water processes of the world and how our systems first arose. The world will benefit from adopting a slow water movement and working with natural systems. Thanks Alpha for promoting this movement and bringing it to my attention.
This to me makes a lot of sense. I appreciate how you framed the findings as a distillation that is not elementary but is accessible for the average person to understand. I figure nature is creating a work-around (or maybe I just hope she is). Creating sources we are unable to see despite our technological advances.
I've heard people say we have the same amount of water as we've always had. Just last night I was talking to an individual about how in our rural agricultural place, farmers are opening more space to grow hay regardless of the streams running at the borders and edges. I talked about the the cooling factor of these ecozones, the exposure from warming temperatures, last summers drought (though this a good winter). Shrugs of shoulders. Only this moment matters not the implications of our choices.
Wow, worrying. Thank you Alpha, as always, you've explained this very well.
try to build passiv Radiation cooling fences with small electric current for dew harvesting…If someone has a big fence in the south and want to try?
I like it. Your analogy made me think about how air locks and bell siphons work.
can you explain your analogy of air locks and bell siphons?
furthermore, that paper is great. thank you for bringing it to my / our attention.
Not trying to make an analogy per say. I’ve just seen over the years in the hydrogeology/engineering consulting industry how air / water interfaces, especially when they are contained/confined (hidden), can respond to change in unexpected ways.