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Abundant water for ourselves and future generations is achievable. A change in mindset from the dominant water scarcity paradigm to a regenerative water abundance paradigm is required. Following this, we have merely but to apply appropriate techniques to completely and utterly transform our private and shared landscapes. We can do this by designing and implementing systems in alignment with the four principles below, adapted from permaculture teacher and designer Warren Brush.
The actions of a regenerative hydrological cycle can be expressed in terms of sound fiscal budget management. The Four Rโs of a water budget – receive, recharge, retain, and release – are equivalent to income, deposit, savings, and expense, and are described more fully below. It is always in the best interest of a landowner or land steward that the water balance of their local watersheds is in the blue and not in the red, that liquid assets continually produce a high-quality return on investment, and that returns are re-invested back into local watersheds to continue building principal.
Watersheds only receive water as snowfall, rainfall, dew condensation and fog precipitation. Annual precipitation is the only true source of income to re-supply a propertyโs water budget allowance. Everything else (drafting fossil aquifers, importing from other areas) is drawing down on principal (whether locally or somewhere AWAY).
Regenerative hydrology advocates the adaptive management of watershed lands to optimize rehydration by promoting land use patterns that enhance the receptive capacity of a watershed in times of excess and the retentive capacity in times of drought.
While it may seem that we as humans lack the ability to influence the amount of precipitation on our properties, we can in fact shift this number, as shown in examples like the Willie Smits Samboja Rain Machine.
Recharge processes are critical for the landscape to annually refresh itself via the deposit slip called infiltration. The capacity to make water deposits depends on the watershedโs recharge potential. Precipitation received by the watershed must percolate and be absorbed, or else there is no replenishment of the water savings account.
Recharge potential and functions are impaired by the hardening and paving over of natural recharge areas, poor siting and drainage of roadways, concentration of run-off in pipes and ditches, the disconnection of creeks and rivers from their floodplains, the deforestation of native vegetation, and the draining of wetlands.
To increase recharge, a landowner can:
The retention of recharged precipitation is like a savings account asset that yields interest. The storage of water is often the most challenging aspect of water supply management. Regenerative hydrology strategies should appropriately slow water down, increasing the residence time of water storage in our watersheds. This will optimize the amount of water available for local expense by living processes.
A landowner is wise to avoid overdrafting of their local watersheds. To be in the blue, a healthy albeit challenging goal is to never extract out of storage (groundwater) in amounts greater than what is annually received and recharged. While this can go on for a while, eventually a penalty must be paid. In situations where this is currently occurring, landowners can take steps to mend the broken hydrological cycle to ensure that as much water as possible is being returned and put to highest use in the landscape before it leaves.
To increase retention, a landowner can:
Ideally, expenditure of water assets will go to further increase the reception, recharge and retention capacities (the first Three Rโs) of the watershed.
Water is released naturally to the ocean, land and atmosphere in a process known as the water cycle. Through seasonal snow and ice melts, groundwater springs and seeps, water is returned to creeks and rivers. Solar evaporation and the evapo-transpiration by plants help to form new clouds and feed the cycle anew. The infinite nature of this cycle is to continually flow and be in flux as the expense of one stage produces income for the next.
Common modern development practices (creating impervious surfaces, channelizing stormwater, etc.) tend to increase the rate and volume of storm waterโs return to the ocean via excessive runoff and heightened flood discharges. This directly reduces the landscapeโs ability to retain water and diminishes the amount of water available for later release during the dry season when it is most needed.
To increase sustainable expenditure, landowners must implement the prior Three Rโs of Regenerative Hydrology as best they possibly can. Expenditure of stored water (whether stored in the soil or in a tank) should create a net positive return for the landscape and hydrological cycle at large.
Slow, Spread, Sink, Grow
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