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Some regions in India with wet and dry seasons have been successfully doing this for some time now. Interestingly, the very high precipitation during the wet se

Some regions in India with wet and dry seasons have been successfully doing this for some time now. Interestingly, the very high precipitation during the wet season allowed them to achieve improvement without megaprojects, instead focusing on outreach campaigns to teach many small farmers to build recharge wells and water slowing features (frequent small dams) on runoff streams on their land to foster ground absorption during the wet season.

hosh 3y ago
Slowing down water is the key and there are many design patterns that achieve this. You don’t even need to build structures (like when we envision with the word “dam”). Even digging a small trench that follows contours in the upland helps water infiltrate into the ground. The dirt you dig out can be piled up as a bearm. The permaculture community the world over has been putting these design patterns for decades now, and they drew from ideas found in pre-modern societies. Brad Lancaster wrote an excellent multi-volume book about water harvesting structures, including taking into account erosion and silt deposit patterns, and working with plants. He calls it “planting the rain”. It doesn’t have to be in places with wet and dry seasons. In much of temperate climates of the US, beavers modified the flow of the rivers such that the surface water was able to meander a much greater surface than the main flow of the river. It supported the trees and vegetation, which in turn formed habitat.
- modriano 3y ago
  I came across an excellent permaculture YouTuber (who is also a professor at Oregon State (I think) and is incredible at drawing diagrams) [0]. Incidentally, based on his videos on the power of plants to filter out things as toxic as heavy metals and some biological wastes [1], I'm very concerned that the "injection well" idea for filling aquifers could result in contaminating the aquifer. Filtering through earth and active ecosystems seems like an important step in recharging aquifers safely. [0] https://youtu.be/7fFXJ3G49pY https://youtu.be/7fFXJ3G49pY [1] https://youtu.be/f-sRcVkZ9yg https://youtu.be/f-sRcVkZ9yg
  - hosh 3y ago
    Andrew Millison! He used live out in Arizona and did projects out here before being enticed to Oregon. The story I heard is that someone wanted him to teach out in Oregon badly enough to arrange for teaching at Oregon State. OSU and the Prescott College (here in AZ) are one of the few places teaching permaculture design at a college level. Millison also did a series of video on the Indian water crisis and how they used permaculture design to transform wastelands into productive habitats.

hosh 3y ago

Slowing down water is the key and there are many design patterns that achieve this. You don’t even need to build structures (like when we envision with the word “dam”). Even digging a small trench that follows contours in the upland helps water infiltrate into the ground. The dirt you dig out can be piled up as a bearm. The permaculture community the world over has been putting these design patterns for decades now, and they drew from ideas found in pre-modern societies. Brad Lancaster wrote an excellent multi-volume book about water harvesting structures, including taking into account erosion and silt deposit patterns, and working with plants. He calls it “planting the rain”. It doesn’t have to be in places with wet and dry seasons. In much of temperate climates of the US, beavers modified the flow of the rivers such that the surface water was able to meander a much greater surface than the main flow of the river. It supported the trees and vegetation, which in turn formed habitat.

modriano 3y ago
I came across an excellent permaculture YouTuber (who is also a professor at Oregon State (I think) and is incredible at drawing diagrams) [0]. Incidentally, based on his videos on the power of plants to filter out things as toxic as heavy metals and some biological wastes [1], I'm very concerned that the "injection well" idea for filling aquifers could result in contaminating the aquifer. Filtering through earth and active ecosystems seems like an important step in recharging aquifers safely. [0] https://youtu.be/7fFXJ3G49pY https://youtu.be/7fFXJ3G49pY [1] https://youtu.be/f-sRcVkZ9yg https://youtu.be/f-sRcVkZ9yg
- hosh 3y ago
  Andrew Millison! He used live out in Arizona and did projects out here before being enticed to Oregon. The story I heard is that someone wanted him to teach out in Oregon badly enough to arrange for teaching at Oregon State. OSU and the Prescott College (here in AZ) are one of the few places teaching permaculture design at a college level. Millison also did a series of video on the Indian water crisis and how they used permaculture design to transform wastelands into productive habitats.