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I read someone else suggest Permaculture as a way of mitigating some of the affects of monsoons in these types of areas. Does anyone have any evidences of such

I read someone else suggest Permaculture as a way of mitigating some of the affects of monsoons in these types of areas. Does anyone have any evidences of such a thing working?

peteradio 4y ago
Sounds ridiculous on its face, and that is as a practitioner of permaculture. I couldn't really get my head around how it could possibly make even a slight dent against the massive flooding witnessed here.
- loonster 4y ago
  The more water that is retained on the property, the less that is available for entering streams.
- bergenty 4y ago
  Lots of small water retaining walls and pits makes it so it doesn’t run off and accumulate in some low central area.
- Panino 4y ago
  When Gabe Brown switched from conventional agriculture to regenerative agriculture, he increased water infiltration in his soil from 0.5 inches (1.25cm) per hour to 30 inches (75cm) per hour. So imagine if he and all his neighbors had the same beautiful soil -- flooding just couldn't happen. I haven't seen a list of such measurements from permaculture, but I know it can be used to regreen deserts (as shown in Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Arizona and elsewhere). And I assume permaculture vastly increases water infiltration. Geoff Lawton has videos showing Zaytuna Farm happily surviving drought and flood alike. If farmers switched from conventional agriculture to some combination of regenerative agriculture and permaculture, most flooding would be prevented. Their own fields would easily infiltrate rain, eliminating runoff that builds up into flooding. The article mentions that in addition to Pakistan getting double the normal amount of rain, increased glacier melt is filling the Indus river. I assume that in the theoretical situation of all farmers in Pakistan practicing regenerative ag or permaculture, that land on the Indus would flood. But not 1/3 of the country as we're seeing now, and the flooded areas would recover faster.
  - alar44 4y ago
    Yeah just imagine if a billion people completely changed their way of life.
    - IX-103 4y ago
      I'm not sure if you're being sarcastic or not. Climate change is going to require changes of at least that scale, whether we reduce emissions or not.
      - zaroth 4y ago
        Luckily for humanity that won’t actually be necessary. In the next 20-30 years I suspect we’ll just moderate total solar irradiance as-needed by injecting moon dust into L1. The only issue is if there are powerful countries that are actually benefiting from the warming and don’t want to cool it down bit.
        blooalien 4y ago
        Luckily for humanity that won’t actually be necessary because in the next 20-30 years we're likely to revert to savagery and barbarism, and "civilized" behaviors won't matter anymore (assuming one of our "leaders" doesn't do the epic stupid and get us all "nuked" out of existence).
    - lijogdfljk 4y ago
      Imagine if they don't.
    - CommanderData 4y ago
      I think that's pretty easy if government incentives are in place.
  - peteradio 4y ago
    Any link to read about this 0.5 - 30 inch/hr conversion? Cultivated soil or already wetted soil will absorb much more readily than not, was this a carefully controlled experiment? Anyway it would take some serious modelling not handwavy yes or no as to whether permaculture/regenerative techniques (and a well defined definition of success of mitigation) could work. I absolutely admit that it could help on the margins, but would it have really have changed the image featured in this comment: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32692060 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32692060 ? Is the supposition that this water would find its way to some aquifer?
- 11235813213455 4y ago
  permacultures are some super carbon sinks, anti-erosion systems, absorption systems and organic food producers, each one is just a grain of sand (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sorites_paradox https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sorites_paradox), but many grains do the job along with lifestyle changes
pvaldes 4y ago
I can't see how it could help having tons of plastic also floating in the river and expensive gravel filling the river bottom. The best way would still be to work with the monsoon, not against it. But maybe I'm not understanding the solution. Can you explain more the idea?
- sophacles 4y ago
  Permaculture has nothing to do with tons of plastic nor gravel filling the river bottom. Permaculture is: the development of agricultural ecosystems intended to be sustainable and self-sufficient. I presume GP meant that by having more persistent vegetation in the area, that vegitation would do vegetation things and help with flood control.
  - pvaldes 4y ago
    I see, I was thinking in hydroponics, both terms are often associated. I'm sceptical when I see agriculture wrapped in hype terms. I think that engineering will play a bigger role here. Forest restauration and dams that would retain soil and water and absorb part of the hit will help. Just to speculate about possible partial solutions, I think that in plain areas subject to frequent flooding they could erect small hills and build the houses over those to defend homes. As floods will increase in the future, the sooner they start, the better. They could also to dig a system of storm ponds. So will have many soil to build the hills. Moving soil can be done in the same step. The base of the hills should be heavily reforested to retain the soil in place. As a bonus you increase the forested area and help nature to flourish. The other solution would be to dig concrete canals for as water highways but that would remove the main reason why people lives there: Very rich soil for agriculture plus water. You don't want all of this water lost in the sea Storm ponds would play a benefit role to store water for the dry season also.
mountaintimefrm 4y ago
Probably the best documented example of it working is in the Loess Plateau in China. John D Liu has a couple documentaries on it, here is one: https://youtu.be/IDgDWbQtlKI https://youtu.be/IDgDWbQtlKI A good example of a similar project in India, as covered by Andrew Millison: https://youtu.be/jDMnbeW3F8A https://youtu.be/jDMnbeW3F8A Sepp Holzer did a similar project in Portugal: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OUryneCjxV4 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OUryneCjxV4 ...I believe he also did some pretty large projects in the middle east, but I can't find any vids on them at the moment. Geoff Lawton has done a ton of projects like this, but maybe not at the landscape wide scales like the projects above. Probably the best book on the basic principles of how to do it - Rainwater Harvesting for Drylands and Beyond by Brad Lancaster. Also the book Water For Every Farm by P.A. Yeomans is pretty good as well, but not as accessible of a read. TLDR - To keep desert monsoons from flooding areas downstream, dig a landscape wide network of swales and basins to catch, soak and sink the water into the soil. Properly dug, such earthworks recharge aquifers while stopping flooding and erosion.

I read someone else suggest Permaculture as a way of mitigating some of the affects of monsoons in these types of areas. Does anyone have any evidences of such a thing working?

peteradio 4y ago

Sounds ridiculous on its face, and that is as a practitioner of permaculture. I couldn't really get my head around how it could possibly make even a slight dent against the massive flooding witnessed here.

loonster 4y ago
The more water that is retained on the property, the less that is available for entering streams.
bergenty 4y ago
Lots of small water retaining walls and pits makes it so it doesn’t run off and accumulate in some low central area.
Panino 4y ago
When Gabe Brown switched from conventional agriculture to regenerative agriculture, he increased water infiltration in his soil from 0.5 inches (1.25cm) per hour to 30 inches (75cm) per hour. So imagine if he and all his neighbors had the same beautiful soil -- flooding just couldn't happen. I haven't seen a list of such measurements from permaculture, but I know it can be used to regreen deserts (as shown in Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Arizona and elsewhere). And I assume permaculture vastly increases water infiltration. Geoff Lawton has videos showing Zaytuna Farm happily surviving drought and flood alike. If farmers switched from conventional agriculture to some combination of regenerative agriculture and permaculture, most flooding would be prevented. Their own fields would easily infiltrate rain, eliminating runoff that builds up into flooding. The article mentions that in addition to Pakistan getting double the normal amount of rain, increased glacier melt is filling the Indus river. I assume that in the theoretical situation of all farmers in Pakistan practicing regenerative ag or permaculture, that land on the Indus would flood. But not 1/3 of the country as we're seeing now, and the flooded areas would recover faster.
- alar44 4y ago
  Yeah just imagine if a billion people completely changed their way of life.
  - IX-103 4y ago
    I'm not sure if you're being sarcastic or not. Climate change is going to require changes of at least that scale, whether we reduce emissions or not.
    - zaroth 4y ago
      Luckily for humanity that won’t actually be necessary. In the next 20-30 years I suspect we’ll just moderate total solar irradiance as-needed by injecting moon dust into L1. The only issue is if there are powerful countries that are actually benefiting from the warming and don’t want to cool it down bit.
      - blooalien 4y ago
        Luckily for humanity that won’t actually be necessary because in the next 20-30 years we're likely to revert to savagery and barbarism, and "civilized" behaviors won't matter anymore (assuming one of our "leaders" doesn't do the epic stupid and get us all "nuked" out of existence).
  - lijogdfljk 4y ago
    Imagine if they don't.
  - CommanderData 4y ago
    I think that's pretty easy if government incentives are in place.
- peteradio 4y ago
  Any link to read about this 0.5 - 30 inch/hr conversion? Cultivated soil or already wetted soil will absorb much more readily than not, was this a carefully controlled experiment? Anyway it would take some serious modelling not handwavy yes or no as to whether permaculture/regenerative techniques (and a well defined definition of success of mitigation) could work. I absolutely admit that it could help on the margins, but would it have really have changed the image featured in this comment: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32692060 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32692060 ? Is the supposition that this water would find its way to some aquifer?
11235813213455 4y ago
permacultures are some super carbon sinks, anti-erosion systems, absorption systems and organic food producers, each one is just a grain of sand (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sorites_paradox https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sorites_paradox), but many grains do the job along with lifestyle changes

pvaldes 4y ago

I can't see how it could help having tons of plastic also floating in the river and expensive gravel filling the river bottom. The best way would still be to work with the monsoon, not against it. But maybe I'm not understanding the solution. Can you explain more the idea?

sophacles 4y ago
Permaculture has nothing to do with tons of plastic nor gravel filling the river bottom. Permaculture is: the development of agricultural ecosystems intended to be sustainable and self-sufficient. I presume GP meant that by having more persistent vegetation in the area, that vegitation would do vegetation things and help with flood control.
- pvaldes 4y ago
  I see, I was thinking in hydroponics, both terms are often associated. I'm sceptical when I see agriculture wrapped in hype terms. I think that engineering will play a bigger role here. Forest restauration and dams that would retain soil and water and absorb part of the hit will help. Just to speculate about possible partial solutions, I think that in plain areas subject to frequent flooding they could erect small hills and build the houses over those to defend homes. As floods will increase in the future, the sooner they start, the better. They could also to dig a system of storm ponds. So will have many soil to build the hills. Moving soil can be done in the same step. The base of the hills should be heavily reforested to retain the soil in place. As a bonus you increase the forested area and help nature to flourish. The other solution would be to dig concrete canals for as water highways but that would remove the main reason why people lives there: Very rich soil for agriculture plus water. You don't want all of this water lost in the sea Storm ponds would play a benefit role to store water for the dry season also.

mountaintimefrm 4y ago

Probably the best documented example of it working is in the Loess Plateau in China. John D Liu has a couple documentaries on it, here is one: https://youtu.be/IDgDWbQtlKI https://youtu.be/IDgDWbQtlKI A good example of a similar project in India, as covered by Andrew Millison: https://youtu.be/jDMnbeW3F8A https://youtu.be/jDMnbeW3F8A Sepp Holzer did a similar project in Portugal: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OUryneCjxV4 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OUryneCjxV4 ...I believe he also did some pretty large projects in the middle east, but I can't find any vids on them at the moment. Geoff Lawton has done a ton of projects like this, but maybe not at the landscape wide scales like the projects above. Probably the best book on the basic principles of how to do it - Rainwater Harvesting for Drylands and Beyond by Brad Lancaster. Also the book Water For Every Farm by P.A. Yeomans is pretty good as well, but not as accessible of a read. TLDR - To keep desert monsoons from flooding areas downstream, dig a landscape wide network of swales and basins to catch, soak and sink the water into the soil. Properly dug, such earthworks recharge aquifers while stopping flooding and erosion.