Earthshot Elixir: Take It From Beaver?

We Love Puns Here, We're Fun Here

Mar 03, 2021

Be Like Beavers

Written by: Forrest Pound & James McCreight

Edited by: Nicole Felts

Leave it to Beaver, take it from Beaver, be like beavers?

In the face of catastrophic climate change, The Water Team at Earthshot Labs is developing the tools to create a more resilient, verdant, and life-supporting world.

Water Is Life

When the subject is broached, any inhabitant of an arid region in the world will be quick to say something to the effect of ‘Water is Life.’ The simplicity of the phrase is matched only by its accuracy. Humans can't survive without water for more than a couple of days; animals and birds, depending on their unique adaptations, may fare somewhat better for a week or more. Specialized, well-adapted plants with long taproots can sometimes last a year or two with no rain, but beyond that, they must rely on the viability of their seeds to carry on. Water is crucial to our existence.

But Water Is In Crisis

Severe droughts within the last decade have brought whole regions of the Earth to the brink of collapse. During its multi-year drought, drivers in California’s Central Valley were constantly reminded of a ‘Congress Created Dust Bowl’ as they passed fallow fields and orchards, abandoned as a result of water rationing. Last year, across the west coast of the United States and much of Australia, desiccated forest and brushlands erupted into towering infernos. Meanwhile, in Cape Town, South Africa, a city blessed with a bountiful fruit and wine region just to its north, citizens dreaded the looming "Day Zero" when household water would be shut off, triggering the most severe water rationing for a major city in modern history.

When it finally does rain in these areas, the storms are often more severe and release a higher volume of water. That rapid influx can trigger massive floods over heavily degraded land and in highly developed areas where there are a number of impervious surfaces.

We know climate change and current land-use practices will continue to exacerbate existing drought and flood cycles; ecosystems that were once well balanced are in desperate need of restoration. In the coming decades, we must take action to increase ecological resilience and resistance, the specific definitions for which you can find in this paper.

Therefore, We Need to Restore the Water Cycle

In order to rebalance global ecosystems, we need to slow down the water cycle. ‘Managed Aquifer Recharge’ is a general term for enhancing recharge (water input) to both the soil and underlying aquifers. Traditional urban infrastructure and degraded landscapes quickly shuttle water off surfaces; this process increases the velocity of the water, and prevents it from slowly soaking into the soil. In degraded landscapes, this results in topsoil erosion. Even in extremely arid regions, small earthen works such as swales and check dams can capture enough moisture to enable the right trees to flourish. Injection wells can also be used, sometimes in conjunction with earthen works, to directly increase aquifer storage. These practices provide for ecosystem and human resilience, particularly in the face of climate change

How We’re Doing It

At Earthshot Labs, we are developing open-source tools to support managed aquifer recharge (MAR). Our approach combines satellite, airborne, and in situ observations with earth systems models to map the suitability of different kinds of MAR strategies. Data like digital elevation models, soil texture, and expected and forecast precipitation rates can guide the planning and implementation of MAR strategies ranging from injection wells to permaculture practices to support agriculture and ecosystem restoration. In regions rife with flash floods, holding on to excess water is a challenge; our tools will identify areas projected of flooding where recharging local aquifers will enable long-term, sustainable water storage for drought years.

Raising soil moisture and plant-available water also increases the rate of carbon sequestration, making these interventions important for ecologically-based climate change mitigation. (We’ll talk more about carbon sequestration potential in soils in a coming article, so stay tuned!)

Our tools will enable landowners to improve management practices, increasing their land’s available water for cultivated plants to grow, animals to drink, and humans to sustainably use. Restoring ecosystems can increase land resilience and resistance to catastrophic flooding, fire, drought, and pest infestations. We will be empowering landowners to determine exactly how they can positively affect the health of their local ecosystem by altering land-use practices.

Join Our Mission to Democratize Restoring the Water Cycle

For years, there have been two prevailing mechanisms for understanding how we'll solve the climate crisis: assuming personal responsibility which focuses on small-scale change, or simply trusting that someone else will fix the problem. The first assumes that if everyone just shuts off their LED lights when not in use, buys an EV that's powered by solar, and irrigates their lawn less, we'll be alright. The second, while correctly understanding that personal responsibility is impractical at best and wildly inadequate at worst, assumes that the government and the market will fix the climate crisis, but it robs citizens of their agency to have a meaningful impact while dangerously entrusting lackluster institutions.

At Earthshot, we believe that every landowner has the opportunity to have a tremendous impact on the health of their property, their regional watershed, and the global climate, and increasingly, there are mechanisms to get paid for it to boot. We are developing the tools to get us there. We can no longer afford to be passive participants in the fight of our lifetime. Join our open-source community to participate in meaningful climate action.

Gnaw on this...

Beavers are masters of their micro-environment. When they craft small dams, they are building ponds that offer protection from predators. Turns out, those environmental interventions are not only beneficial to the beavers, but they also provide us valuable ecosystem services. The dams, once prevalent across the northern hemisphere, slow down the water cycle, provide habitat for fish and other aquatic life, and even offer protection from wildfire.

So, go ahead, be like a beaver — that’s what we’re doing.

Missed Events

Mini Demo Day

Last week’s demo day showcased work from the Water and Forest Teams.

The Water Team’s Amgad Ellaboudy shared 4 key factors in determining whether or not to build swales in NEOM. The Water Team is also working on managed aquifer potential. Both of these projects have implications in restoring desertified regions.

The Forest Team’s Connor Richards showed us the potential for a global map of carbon forestry stocks, which will provide us with a common academic understanding of where carbon is stored.

During our demo days, there is also time for Q&A, so be sure to tune in to the next one so you can participate in the discussion!