Thanks Alpha for all of your work and your pushing to "actualize" this movement. I have been in the ecological engineering/landscape restoration field for more than 25-years. I got really excited about green stormwater infrastructure a long time ago, but my journey here now has come from a deep-seated dissatisfaction with my professional field. The real promise of it seems diverted back to the same old, same old - money, prestige, etc. The whole Substack for me started out as a way to say to my work community - "you are missing the point and the promise!". I haven't figured out exactly where this might go for me, but the "pattern language" project resonated most; except the "pattern language" concept per se, is not the way I am approaching it. I AM interested in the "story" aspect of this because the old (western) stories are failing us. We need new stories or internalize the old, indigenous stories. But I am still trying to figure out what a better story might look like. Sorry, I don't have a definitive plan that I can stitch in here (yet), but I am definitely, with every fiber, on board.
Hi Alpha, Thanks for your thoughtful reflections on where we are, where we need to go, and how to get there. I am a hydrologist working for a restoration non-profit focused on river/floodplain restoration, Trout Unlimited. 'Slowing the flow' is the cornerstone of our work. It has been for 60 years. As our restoration footprint has increased (we have projects from Alaska, to Arizona, to Maine) and our strategy has shifted towards many 'low-tech process-based restoration (LTPBR)' projects (i.e. beaver dams, beaver dam analogues, post-assisted log structures, etc.) we have recognized the need to better understand the outcomes of these projects on surface and groundwater storage and fluxes, in addition to our habitat goals. We've developed a 'monitoring handbook' for restoration practitioners and are working on a parallel journal article on how to monitor the outcomes of these projects more deeply/precisely for academics. Few orgs or labs will have the funds to monitor everything but our hope is that with more collecting some data, and with consistent, normalized metrics, meta-analyses will become more possible in the coming years. This is all just a note to say we see the need and are working to bridge gaps, identify questions, build knowledge, and improve communication of that knowledge. Happy to share some of our monitoring guides or discuss, if ever relevant. To date, our monitoring plans are less specifically focused on small water cycle effects, but that would be a natural extension. I'll need to think more about how to monitor those effects at the scale (tens to hundreds of hectares) of our projects. If you have thoughts on that last part, let me know, I still have a lot of reading to do. jordan.fields@tu.org
Hi Jordan, Good to hear about your work slowing the waters. I was wondering do you have a sense of how much you need to slow it to start having a real impact. In terms of having impact on small water cycle, if you are scaling it up to much larger areas, you could track isotopes. They could tell you history of the water, how its travelling through river, aquifer and atmosphere. And you could check if theres a difference before and after and also compare with other rivers nearby that did not get slowing down treatment
Hi check out Zach Weiss and water stories YouTube videos . Also there’s a Laura Norman paper about beaver dam analogs and other ways to slow streams in “seminal papers of water” article of this newsletter
Hi Conor, good questions. Alpha noted two good resources in his comment. Laura Norman is certainly at the forefront of monitoring Low Teach Process Based Restoration outcomes in the arid southwestern US. Other resources to check out are: Wheaton et al.'s LTPBR Manual V1 (2019), which describes best practices in detail; Ellen Wohl et al.'s recent paper on 'Geomorphic Context in Process-Based River Restoration' (2024) gives greater detail beyond building in-stream structures. The references contained in Wohl's paper will send you in many fruitful directions. Also see Grudzinski et al.'s 2022 paper 'A global review of beaver dam impacts: Stream conservation implications across biomes'. And finally, on the failure of in-stream structures, don't forget the P (process) in LTPBR. The goal of these restoration projects is not to maintain particular structures in perpetuity, but rather, to 'set the stage' for a suite of beneficial processes to restart. Individual in-stream structures like BDAs, PALS, etc. will fail every 1-3 years, on average, but hopefully beaver will have colonized some structures in that time -- building new ones, and repairing existing ones. A systems-level perspective is essential to the success of ecological process-based restoration: the individual structures aren't important, but the processes are. Erosion is one of those processes. There will be localized erosion when a structure fails, but that will be balanced by aggradation elsewhere, maintaining a system in dynamic equilibrium with the prevailing hydrology.
Hi Alpha, I've been reading your work for a bit and following you on Instagram - but recently subscribed to your Substack. And well even before this week I was seriously considering how I could join in as you suggest in the above year end/looking ahead. I live in Los Angeles and for years have been supporting Savory Institute, watching Walter Jehne talks and now reading your sub. And between you and the likes of Dr. Laura Norman and Dr. Emily Fairfax - I see a low cost buy in way to start creating positive knock on effects by rehydrating the landscape. It's a powerful message - that I know is not yet getting out there - but is probably getting close to a tipping point. Anyway - I want to start a local watershed community (or join one if you know of one in the LA area). Also - I work at. a commercial production company helping directors build pitch decks for projects. So if you need a volunteer to make pitch decks please reach out. Although you seem to create great visual tools all on your own.
One last thing - I love that you and Nick Steiner and Neal Spackman are working on an Iberian plan. I love Spain and see a parallel with California's land dehydration issues.
Thanks for all the dedicated research and networking you're doing
Hi LA, definitely needs hydrating. Thats why we now have the wildfires there.... LA Water and Power have had a paradigm shift in recent years, and much more open to infiltrating rainwater, and hydrating LA. Here is ARLA, a group working on hydrating LA https://acceleratela.org/ . Help on pitch decks could definitely be useful at some point. Also check out this https://localizingcaliforniawaters.org/
I’m attracting to the Pattern Language concept, but I’m not sure how to improve on Brad Lancaster’s Rainwater Harvesting books, especially Volume 2 Water-Harvesting Earthworks, Appendix 1 “Patterns of Water Flow and Erosion - with Their Potential Water-Harvesting Response”.
Thanks Alpha for all of your work and your pushing to "actualize" this movement. I have been in the ecological engineering/landscape restoration field for more than 25-years. I got really excited about green stormwater infrastructure a long time ago, but my journey here now has come from a deep-seated dissatisfaction with my professional field. The real promise of it seems diverted back to the same old, same old - money, prestige, etc. The whole Substack for me started out as a way to say to my work community - "you are missing the point and the promise!". I haven't figured out exactly where this might go for me, but the "pattern language" project resonated most; except the "pattern language" concept per se, is not the way I am approaching it. I AM interested in the "story" aspect of this because the old (western) stories are failing us. We need new stories or internalize the old, indigenous stories. But I am still trying to figure out what a better story might look like. Sorry, I don't have a definitive plan that I can stitch in here (yet), but I am definitely, with every fiber, on board.
Hi Scott, yes figuring out the story aspect is important. There is a new story here and we are still figuring out. Figuring out is part of the fun.... I enjoy your substack posts and discussions about moisture recycling (small water cycle). For readers here is Scott's newsletter https://scottdierks.substack.com/?utm_source=substack&utm_medium=web&utm_campaign=substack_profile
Hi Alpha, Thanks for your thoughtful reflections on where we are, where we need to go, and how to get there. I am a hydrologist working for a restoration non-profit focused on river/floodplain restoration, Trout Unlimited. 'Slowing the flow' is the cornerstone of our work. It has been for 60 years. As our restoration footprint has increased (we have projects from Alaska, to Arizona, to Maine) and our strategy has shifted towards many 'low-tech process-based restoration (LTPBR)' projects (i.e. beaver dams, beaver dam analogues, post-assisted log structures, etc.) we have recognized the need to better understand the outcomes of these projects on surface and groundwater storage and fluxes, in addition to our habitat goals. We've developed a 'monitoring handbook' for restoration practitioners and are working on a parallel journal article on how to monitor the outcomes of these projects more deeply/precisely for academics. Few orgs or labs will have the funds to monitor everything but our hope is that with more collecting some data, and with consistent, normalized metrics, meta-analyses will become more possible in the coming years. This is all just a note to say we see the need and are working to bridge gaps, identify questions, build knowledge, and improve communication of that knowledge. Happy to share some of our monitoring guides or discuss, if ever relevant. To date, our monitoring plans are less specifically focused on small water cycle effects, but that would be a natural extension. I'll need to think more about how to monitor those effects at the scale (tens to hundreds of hectares) of our projects. If you have thoughts on that last part, let me know, I still have a lot of reading to do. jordan.fields@tu.org
Hi Jordan, Good to hear about your work slowing the waters. I was wondering do you have a sense of how much you need to slow it to start having a real impact. In terms of having impact on small water cycle, if you are scaling it up to much larger areas, you could track isotopes. They could tell you history of the water, how its travelling through river, aquifer and atmosphere. And you could check if theres a difference before and after and also compare with other rivers nearby that did not get slowing down treatment
Hi check out Zach Weiss and water stories YouTube videos . Also there’s a Laura Norman paper about beaver dam analogs and other ways to slow streams in “seminal papers of water” article of this newsletter
Do you have any resources describing best practices or case examples for “LTPBR projects?
I’m curious how you deal with the potential for in-stream structures washing out and causing more erosion.
Hi Conor, good questions. Alpha noted two good resources in his comment. Laura Norman is certainly at the forefront of monitoring Low Teach Process Based Restoration outcomes in the arid southwestern US. Other resources to check out are: Wheaton et al.'s LTPBR Manual V1 (2019), which describes best practices in detail; Ellen Wohl et al.'s recent paper on 'Geomorphic Context in Process-Based River Restoration' (2024) gives greater detail beyond building in-stream structures. The references contained in Wohl's paper will send you in many fruitful directions. Also see Grudzinski et al.'s 2022 paper 'A global review of beaver dam impacts: Stream conservation implications across biomes'. And finally, on the failure of in-stream structures, don't forget the P (process) in LTPBR. The goal of these restoration projects is not to maintain particular structures in perpetuity, but rather, to 'set the stage' for a suite of beneficial processes to restart. Individual in-stream structures like BDAs, PALS, etc. will fail every 1-3 years, on average, but hopefully beaver will have colonized some structures in that time -- building new ones, and repairing existing ones. A systems-level perspective is essential to the success of ecological process-based restoration: the individual structures aren't important, but the processes are. Erosion is one of those processes. There will be localized erosion when a structure fails, but that will be balanced by aggradation elsewhere, maintaining a system in dynamic equilibrium with the prevailing hydrology.
Hi Alpha, I've been reading your work for a bit and following you on Instagram - but recently subscribed to your Substack. And well even before this week I was seriously considering how I could join in as you suggest in the above year end/looking ahead. I live in Los Angeles and for years have been supporting Savory Institute, watching Walter Jehne talks and now reading your sub. And between you and the likes of Dr. Laura Norman and Dr. Emily Fairfax - I see a low cost buy in way to start creating positive knock on effects by rehydrating the landscape. It's a powerful message - that I know is not yet getting out there - but is probably getting close to a tipping point. Anyway - I want to start a local watershed community (or join one if you know of one in the LA area). Also - I work at. a commercial production company helping directors build pitch decks for projects. So if you need a volunteer to make pitch decks please reach out. Although you seem to create great visual tools all on your own.
One last thing - I love that you and Nick Steiner and Neal Spackman are working on an Iberian plan. I love Spain and see a parallel with California's land dehydration issues.
Thanks for all the dedicated research and networking you're doing
Hi LA, definitely needs hydrating. Thats why we now have the wildfires there.... LA Water and Power have had a paradigm shift in recent years, and much more open to infiltrating rainwater, and hydrating LA. Here is ARLA, a group working on hydrating LA https://acceleratela.org/ . Help on pitch decks could definitely be useful at some point. Also check out this https://localizingcaliforniawaters.org/
Thank You for these recommendations!
Awesome work Alpha. Crazy year for you, and stoked to see where 2025 takes you. I’m keen to help out where and when I can.
Hey Mitch, glad to be in this space with you. Agree with you that a tidal wave growth of regen water will happen in 2025
🏄🏻 let's go!
I’m attracting to the Pattern Language concept, but I’m not sure how to improve on Brad Lancaster’s Rainwater Harvesting books, especially Volume 2 Water-Harvesting Earthworks, Appendix 1 “Patterns of Water Flow and Erosion - with Their Potential Water-Harvesting Response”.