It's 2025 and Walter and I are returning to the question that inspired our 2018 speaking and listening tour: "Can We Rehydrate California?" We talk about the soil sponge, fire vs. fungi, and more...
Hi Didi, It's so good to listen to you both in conversation again. Inspired by Walter's previous presentations, I've been holding the question of how might we build a visualization platform that allows one to see changes in the status of the soil carbon sponge across rangelands via remote sensing? I've done some research on the matter and haven't come across a compelling approach yet. I'd love to hear if Walter has thoughts on how we might visualize a landscape that is dehydrating / rehydrating using remote sensing. If this is possible, I can imagine multiple benefits from such a capability.
Length of green via NDVI is one measure, especially in contiguous pastures in places with seasona rainfall--as Peter Donovan has been experimenting with.
I had a similar thought initially but my concern is that this measure doesn’t take into account variations in precipitation. The very latest exchange I’ve had with a colleague at the University of Arizona who is a climate scientist and extension specialist pointed me to the standardized precipitation index for characterizing the onset of drought. But as you can imagine, there are still challenges. The one I had not anticipated is that there doesn’t exist a good way of estimating precipitation over broad areas. Standard radar based methods have issues. Rain gauges are still the gold standard.
Getting citizen scientists involved with rain gauges would be good. there is a citizen science group that does that. am forgetting the name, but I've heard Peter Donovan refer to it....
Agreed, but if you are looking at places close to each other like fenceline comparisons at large ranches in California, and can groundtruth with rain guages I think it's pretty telling.
Thank you, Dr. Jehne and Didi, for not giving up on us. My ability to understand the big picture has been enriched and widened. So very grateful for you both.
Hi Didi, a topic that is as big as life itself, so much can be said but I like to think our part not so much as fire but as fungi and maybe this is the transition we need to make.
One point I would like to make is that insects through their metabolism change nutrients to make them more readily available to plants than the man made fertilizers and along this line I have been making living mulches by mixing old with new and spreading them earlier, Skinks love the slaters. I will look forward to the next installment but a few points may include
I believe you can take rain water capture one step further with the separation of grey water from sewerage to add to our drainage sumps and bog gardens for soil and regional rehydration. 100+ liters per day per person in these mountain areas would help a lot to prime the system for more favorable climatic conditions, add to this trickle dams which allow the slow release of hard captured rain events into the perennial creek systems, no dam needs to be full going into a heavy rain event and this will also help to prime the system. (think dew and hydrophobic soils)
On the inland semi desert flat regions of new Mexico and Arizona a half meter high levee in circles could fully capture and soak in a 10 inch rain event and help reduce flooding, crop circles can be many miles across depending on how flat the land is, In Australia we are trialing such solutions to capture monsoonal and cyclonic rain events. In New Mexico you have the added advantage of a shallow karst aquifer system under 100m in depth for easy irrigation of captured water using this method.
Permaculture offers companion planting and to put this in an industrial context each seedling planted is given surrounding room to grow into, the bigger the plant the more room needed which offers many opportunities to improve the conditions and as the plant grows into the space it can shade out the companion plant which will then turn into mulch and release the nutrients back into the system. You stated how Bare soil means lose water and nutrients and create a higher VPD companion plants can offer nutrient and water storage, polyphenol release into the soil as the vegetation biodegrades ( this has been shown to slow carbon re release and plants can take this up for natural insecticides), soil conditioning and VPD regulation.
Much more can be said and I look forward to this continuing discussion. Many thanks
Thank you, Theodore, great suggestions for further discussion. I'm hoping the next episode can be recorded live with attendees. Stay tuned for news cause I'd love to have you there. If you aren't in my newsletter list (for events) you can sign up at www.landandleadership.org.
Wonderful to see two of favourite people in action 🥰🥰. This painting performance was hugely inspired by the teachings of these great folk. (2mins) https://youtu.be/HXlmISve6jQ
(10mins) https://youtu.be/bMGtHf2qFlY. A few niggles but a fun piece. Thanks both for your incredible distillations of such complex topics x
Hi Didi, Another question for Walter is the following. Back in 2021, he made a profound comment in a presentation (link to the comment is here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_TsX7ffouxQ&t=1025s) where he mentioned that a 4% increase in vegetative cover would be enough to offset the additional planetary warming. I'm wondering if he has any articles that lay out the argument in detail that leads to this conclusion. If true, the consequences are massive to say the least. I wonder if other experts would agree with his reasoning. I'd like to be able to study the argument myself to see if I can follow the construction.
Fantastic and informative conversation and it’s great to read your note about Walter.
Worth looking at Brad Lancaster’s Dryland water harvesting books and website of how they transformed their arid suburban street into … well, exactly the sort of stuff you guys are talking about.
A great book I read recently highlighting the importance of animals in all of this, “eat, Poop and die” by Joe Roman
It was so wonderful to see you and Walter together again. The "rehydrate" message seems to be making some headway and it gives me a little bit of optimism. We must just keep at it. Thanks for everything you do! And give my best to Walter.
Hi Didi, It's so good to listen to you both in conversation again. Inspired by Walter's previous presentations, I've been holding the question of how might we build a visualization platform that allows one to see changes in the status of the soil carbon sponge across rangelands via remote sensing? I've done some research on the matter and haven't come across a compelling approach yet. I'd love to hear if Walter has thoughts on how we might visualize a landscape that is dehydrating / rehydrating using remote sensing. If this is possible, I can imagine multiple benefits from such a capability.
Length of green via NDVI is one measure, especially in contiguous pastures in places with seasona rainfall--as Peter Donovan has been experimenting with.
I had a similar thought initially but my concern is that this measure doesn’t take into account variations in precipitation. The very latest exchange I’ve had with a colleague at the University of Arizona who is a climate scientist and extension specialist pointed me to the standardized precipitation index for characterizing the onset of drought. But as you can imagine, there are still challenges. The one I had not anticipated is that there doesn’t exist a good way of estimating precipitation over broad areas. Standard radar based methods have issues. Rain gauges are still the gold standard.
Getting citizen scientists involved with rain gauges would be good. there is a citizen science group that does that. am forgetting the name, but I've heard Peter Donovan refer to it....
Agreed, but if you are looking at places close to each other like fenceline comparisons at large ranches in California, and can groundtruth with rain guages I think it's pretty telling.
Yeah that makes sense. I’m hoping for a more macro view of changes on landscapes across the southwest.
I’m eagerly awaiting part 2
Thank you, Dr. Jehne and Didi, for not giving up on us. My ability to understand the big picture has been enriched and widened. So very grateful for you both.
Hi Didi, a topic that is as big as life itself, so much can be said but I like to think our part not so much as fire but as fungi and maybe this is the transition we need to make.
One point I would like to make is that insects through their metabolism change nutrients to make them more readily available to plants than the man made fertilizers and along this line I have been making living mulches by mixing old with new and spreading them earlier, Skinks love the slaters. I will look forward to the next installment but a few points may include
I believe you can take rain water capture one step further with the separation of grey water from sewerage to add to our drainage sumps and bog gardens for soil and regional rehydration. 100+ liters per day per person in these mountain areas would help a lot to prime the system for more favorable climatic conditions, add to this trickle dams which allow the slow release of hard captured rain events into the perennial creek systems, no dam needs to be full going into a heavy rain event and this will also help to prime the system. (think dew and hydrophobic soils)
On the inland semi desert flat regions of new Mexico and Arizona a half meter high levee in circles could fully capture and soak in a 10 inch rain event and help reduce flooding, crop circles can be many miles across depending on how flat the land is, In Australia we are trialing such solutions to capture monsoonal and cyclonic rain events. In New Mexico you have the added advantage of a shallow karst aquifer system under 100m in depth for easy irrigation of captured water using this method.
Fire proof planting? https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/morning-mix/wp/2015/09/03/how-a-devastating-forest-fire-revealed-a-tree-as-close-to-fireproof-as-a-tree-can-get/
Permaculture offers companion planting and to put this in an industrial context each seedling planted is given surrounding room to grow into, the bigger the plant the more room needed which offers many opportunities to improve the conditions and as the plant grows into the space it can shade out the companion plant which will then turn into mulch and release the nutrients back into the system. You stated how Bare soil means lose water and nutrients and create a higher VPD companion plants can offer nutrient and water storage, polyphenol release into the soil as the vegetation biodegrades ( this has been shown to slow carbon re release and plants can take this up for natural insecticides), soil conditioning and VPD regulation.
Much more can be said and I look forward to this continuing discussion. Many thanks
Thank you, Theodore, great suggestions for further discussion. I'm hoping the next episode can be recorded live with attendees. Stay tuned for news cause I'd love to have you there. If you aren't in my newsletter list (for events) you can sign up at www.landandleadership.org.
Great interview & sharing between two passionate & knowledgeable people on an interesting topic; I learned a lot about soil sponge.
Thanks, Donlon! So good to hear from you. You popped in my mind several times this week, and now you appeared here, like magic!
This is awesome guys; perfect timing and full of poignant and actionable material to prevent these disasters from occurring. Well done.
Wonderful to see two of favourite people in action 🥰🥰. This painting performance was hugely inspired by the teachings of these great folk. (2mins) https://youtu.be/HXlmISve6jQ
(10mins) https://youtu.be/bMGtHf2qFlY. A few niggles but a fun piece. Thanks both for your incredible distillations of such complex topics x
Hi Didi, Another question for Walter is the following. Back in 2021, he made a profound comment in a presentation (link to the comment is here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_TsX7ffouxQ&t=1025s) where he mentioned that a 4% increase in vegetative cover would be enough to offset the additional planetary warming. I'm wondering if he has any articles that lay out the argument in detail that leads to this conclusion. If true, the consequences are massive to say the least. I wonder if other experts would agree with his reasoning. I'd like to be able to study the argument myself to see if I can follow the construction.
Fantastic and informative conversation and it’s great to read your note about Walter.
Worth looking at Brad Lancaster’s Dryland water harvesting books and website of how they transformed their arid suburban street into … well, exactly the sort of stuff you guys are talking about.
A great book I read recently highlighting the importance of animals in all of this, “eat, Poop and die” by Joe Roman
Do you know about this meeting?
https://www.linkedin.com/posts/saskia-keesstra-57199b3_dear-colleague-next-year-in-july-8-11th-activity-7259109269596246016-qmTl?utm_source=share&utm_medium=member_ios
In the absence of trees you can use Katabatic Towers to catch the rivers in the atmosphere that mentioned Walter at the end of the conversation
https://www.linkedin.com/posts/jes%C3%BAs-areso-salinas-011201130_the-phisics-of-the-katabatic-power-towers-activity-7220499585826177024-3vDs?utm_source=share&utm_medium=member_ios
Didi,
It was so wonderful to see you and Walter together again. The "rehydrate" message seems to be making some headway and it gives me a little bit of optimism. We must just keep at it. Thanks for everything you do! And give my best to Walter.
Wonderful conversation. Denser and denser the pattern becomes.
No brine
Absolutely marvelous!!
But we also could have desalination using solar power and mo brine. To help start the process in California, that is by the sea.