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Re:We need more water than rain can provide: refilling river... by worldsayshi on Sunday November 20, 2022 @03:40PM (#33685037)
My favourite solution to water scarcity is water traps. It seems like such an amazingly simple concept with underrated potential. While it cannot possibly solve water shortages anywhere it can turn literal deserts green:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T39QHprz-x8

Re:We need more water than rain can provide: refilling river... by jamiek88 on Sunday November 20, 2022 @03:48PM (#33685122)
Also known as swales. There’s a lot of woo and ‘influencer’ stuff in the permaculture world but some real good concepts too.
Re:We need more water than rain can provide: refilling river... by worldsayshi on Sunday November 20, 2022 @07:14PM (#33687071)
I've only recently been learning a little bit about permaculture. In essence it seems like agro hacking in a way? A big variety of tricks that you can implement on a plot of land to increase biological values or yield.

It sounds a bit like medicine before medical science. A bit of woo is then to be expected?

Re:We need more water than rain can provide: refilling river... by algo_trader on Sunday November 20, 2022 @05:36PM (#33686224)
This is an amazing video.

The eco-system seems fragile - easily destroyed by over grazing, or even simply from tourists or visitors

Also labour intensive - he mentions 100 labourers x multiple years.

So these projects would need government regulation and protection.

Re:We need more water than rain can provide: refilling river... by worldsayshi on Sunday November 20, 2022 @05:57PM (#33686434)
Sure it's labour intensive to adjust the topography but once it is done it shouldn't need continuous maintenance, as shown in the end of the clip. I also suspect that the fragility is due to it being so newly established. If the foliage is allowed to become dense and put down proper roots over time it should become more robust.
Re:We need more water than rain can provide: refilling river... by hawtkey on Sunday November 20, 2022 @06:24PM (#33686652)
Beaver dams are a good example of this too. Beavers were building bioswales everywhere in North America for free and we killed almost all of them and wore them for hats.

https://www.ewu.edu/cstem/stories/the-ecological-benefits-of...

Re:We need more water than rain can provide: refilling river... by worldsayshi on Sunday November 20, 2022 @07:10PM (#33687037)
Which makes me wonder how much carbon we can sequester per reintroduced beaver. Wetlands are apparently very good carbon sinks.