Even if programs like these partially backfire, it’s just nice that they’re trying, you know? All we have in the West is lunatic start-ups whose pitch is to darken the skies and bring about eternal winter.
We also have carbon capture where their plan to become profitable is to sell the concentrated carbon pucks as fuel.
Someone who’s good at science tell me if it’s better to change your entire water distribution with trees or with row crops?
Alternative “joke”: oh sure when china does it it’s “regreening” but when hardworking corn farmers do it it’s “ruining the biosphere”
But at what cost
I remember reading an article long ago about planting trees & climate change & how doing this does not automatically equate to the benefits intended. Dont remember if water was mentioned but its interesting they are finding out what this does & will have to think carefully about the regreening efforts made.
With all due respect to Dr Staal and the author, it seems like some pretty big journalistic liberties were taken in translating the research.
This has important implications for water management, because China’s water is already unevenly distributed. The north has about 20% of the country’s water but is home to 46% of the population and 60% of the arable land, according to the study. The Chinese government is trying to address this; however, the measures will likely fail if water redistribution due to regreening isn’t taken into account, Staal and his colleagues argued.
This conclusion seems like a massive extrapolation from the available data, and what was stated earlier in the article. There are so many other conflating factors that come into play with a landscape scale restoration - that “water redistribution due to regreening” is hardly critical.
Ecosystem restoration and afforestation in other countries could be affecting water cycles there, too. “From a water resources point of view, we need to see case-by-case whether certain land cover changes are beneficial or not,” Staal said. “It depends among other things on how much and where the water that goes into the atmosphere comes down again as precipitation.”
This whole paragraph makes me feel like I’m having a stroke. First sentence states an obvious truism. Second sentence is just wrong, there’s really no “case-by-case” on implementation of ecosystem restoration and green infrastructure. Land management is either in balance with the natural, dynamic process allowing for a resilient ecosystem; or it’s not, and everything suffers. Final sentence is just kind of funny - makes me think of if John Madden were a hydrologist- it’s right but obvious.
Dang it’s rare to have a pop science article in a niche I study- kinda fun
But also to your actual point, basically nothing done with the water cycle -and ecosystem restoration as a part - does exactly what’s intended. Especially with regards to climate change. There are so many factors affecting the local and global climate that it almost always winds up being an exercise in “adaptive management”; or basically just taking the plunge in the best direction at the time and evaluating the impacts, then adjusting accordingly.
For instance: if the concern is increased evapotranspiration (ET) due to reforestation, what is the comparison state? Because while reforestation will increase ET, it will also alter the soil structure, typically making it more permeable and adding organic matter (thus increasing soil moisture capacity).
But everything is related, so that’s where it’s important to observe and adapt as needed.
that’s so cool. the water cycle and the general interconnectedness of earths systems are so impressive to me
Its crazy taking a train across Xinjiang and seeing the scale of it all.
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