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So, how do you refill an aquifer?

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Re: So, how do you refill an aquifer?

#41

Post by modriano »

hosh wrote: post #32
SkeuomorphicBee wrote: post #27

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 absorpti…

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,…

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

[1] https://youtu.be/f-sRcVkZ9yg

Re: So, how do you refill an aquifer?

#42

Post by Permit »

ChiCityRanger wrote: post #36

The article needlessly mentions the Murzuk-Djado Basin and the Arabian Basin as having "little hope of recharging", when the very study it cites shows that the Murzuk-Djado basin as being less stressed than the California basin it talks about. I hate how American Exceptionalism always creeps its way into everything regardless how benign the topic seems. It's like she's trying to say "hey, we've got it bad but at leas…

> It's like she's trying to say "hey, we've got it bad but at least we're not as backwards as those mOsLeM countries".

Nope, it’s not like that at all.

Re: So, how do you refill an aquifer?

#43

Post by ChiCityRanger »

Permit wrote: post #42
ChiCityRanger wrote: post #36

The article needlessly mentions the Murzuk-Djado Basin and the Arabian Basin as having "little hope of recharging", when the very study it cites shows that the Murzuk-Djado basin as being less stressed than the California basin it talks about. I hate how American Exceptionalism always creeps its way into everything regardless how benign the topic seems. It's like she's trying to say "hey, we've got it bad but at leas…

> It's like she's trying to say "hey, we've got it bad but at least we're not as backwards as those mOsLeM countries". Nope, it’s not like that at all.

I could be wrong. It's likely that my characterization was not her intent. That said, even the most well meaning individual in the "west" has this implicit bias against the "non west" that it just gets everywhere and you see it everywhere.

Re: So, how do you refill an aquifer?

#44

Post by hosh »

modriano wrote: post #41
hosh wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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,…

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…

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.

Re: So, how do you refill an aquifer?

#45

Post by docandrew »

maerF0x0 wrote: post #3

Requiring farms to have ponds/wells could be a way to create a distributed solution. Joel Salatin has been teaching about the value of ponds for decades now. for example here's a video of him talking about ponds https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o82ar51eIsE This will require the water boards to rethink things like not allowing capture of rainwater/flow. The evaporation of ponds becomes somewhere else's rainwater (poten…

Unfortunately it’s illegal to dig ponds on your property without a permit and the appropriate water rights in some areas. There’s a whole field of law around water rights and these sorts of permits, it’s really wild. You need an engineering plan with the expected evaporation rate and then need to describe how you’d replace the water you took from some downstream, more senior rights holder.

Re: So, how do you refill an aquifer?

#46

Post by pdabbadabba »

ChiCityRanger wrote: post #36

The article needlessly mentions the Murzuk-Djado Basin and the Arabian Basin as having "little hope of recharging", when the very study it cites shows that the Murzuk-Djado basin as being less stressed than the California basin it talks about. I hate how American Exceptionalism always creeps its way into everything regardless how benign the topic seems. It's like she's trying to say "hey, we've got it bad but at leas…

As a general matter, I hear you. But in this case I think your objections are misplaced: it actually agrees with you that the California basis is more stressed, but also is the subject of an ambitious plan to recharge it (which may or may not succeed) which is the topic of the article.

It also blames the stress on the Murzuk-Djado and Arabian Basins on climate change which, to me, places the blame more on the U.S. than on 'backwards muslims.'

Here's the full passage:

> Especially in places that have already been hard-hit by climate change, many aquifers have become so depleted that humans need to step in; the Arabian Aquifer in Saudi Arabia and the Murzuk-Djado Basin in North Africa, per a 2015 study, are particularly stressed and have little hope of recharging. In the U.S., aquifers are depleting fast from the Pacific Northwest to the Gulf, but drought-stricken California is the poster-child of both water stress and efforts to undo the damage.

In any case, it's actually pretty fascinating how a few sentences about aquifers can draw out these issues. And, to your point, I would certainly not be shocked to learn that there are ambitious plans to recharge the Murzuk-Djado and Arabian Basins that this article overlooks.

Re: So, how do you refill an aquifer?

#47

Post by justrealist »

ChiCityRanger wrote: post #36

The article needlessly mentions the Murzuk-Djado Basin and the Arabian Basin as having "little hope of recharging", when the very study it cites shows that the Murzuk-Djado basin as being less stressed than the California basin it talks about. I hate how American Exceptionalism always creeps its way into everything regardless how benign the topic seems. It's like she's trying to say "hey, we've got it bad but at leas…

I think it's more the practical matter that California even when dry receives 5x the rain of Saudi Arabia.

Re: So, how do you refill an aquifer?

#48

Post by bequanna »

docandrew wrote: post #45
maerF0x0 wrote: post #3

Requiring farms to have ponds/wells could be a way to create a distributed solution. Joel Salatin has been teaching about the value of ponds for decades now. for example here's a video of him talking about ponds https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o82ar51eIsE This will require the water boards to rethink things like not allowing capture of rainwater/flow. The evaporation of ponds becomes somewhere else's rainwater (poten…

Unfortunately it’s illegal to dig ponds on your property without a permit and the appropriate water rights in some areas. There’s a whole field of law around water rights and these sorts of permits, it’s really wild. You need an engineering plan with the expected evaporation rate and then need to describe how you’d replace the water you took from some downstream, more senior rights holder.

Which states? I think this is heavily dependent on the size of pond, size of waterway you’re impeding and the jurisdiction.

Re: So, how do you refill an aquifer?

#49

Post by myshpa »

dylan604 wrote: post #28
meristohm wrote: post #2

Permeable pavement sounds interesting, and I wonder how safe it is (the bottom of the fractional-distillation barrel might have fewer volatiles but do we want more surface area of the stuff to come into contact with water?) and how quickly it gets clogged. Also, beavers: they're great at slowing the flow of water across a landscape, giving the water time to recharge aquifers. We'll need to address how we use land, th…

My concern for urban permeable pavement is all of the chemicals that would be absorbed with it. Same with the forced injection of water back into an aquifer. I was under the impression that the water being pulled through the ground is a filtering process so that the water in the aquifer is clean.

> the water ... filtering process ... the water in the aquifer is clean

Clean(er) ... maybe ... nowadays nitrates, pesticides/herbicides, pfas/pfoas, industrial chemicals (solvents, heavy metals, volatile organic compounds), pharmaceuticals (prescription drugs, over-the-counter medications), lead, arsenic, mercury, and cadmium (through industrial activities, mining operations, and improper waste disposal), chlorinated solvents, such as trichloroethylene (TCE) and perchloroethylene (PCE), all were detected in the groundwater.

Nothing is "clean" anymore. Not the arctic, not the tops of the mountains in the natural reserves, not the remote islands, not the deep underground.

Re: So, how do you refill an aquifer?

#50

Post by onlyrealcuzzo »

pgrote wrote: post #17

Aquifers are intriguing. They are so large a person has a hard time realizing over a period of time how the land is affected when they are tapped. Subsidence is hard to wrap your head around. San Joaquin Valley is a good example. https://www.mantecabulletin.com/news/local-news/san-joaquin-... https://www.usgs.gov/media/images/location-maximum-land-subs...

The water users sucked up $500M worth of water infrastructure - that 250k people are likely to pay for - $2000 per person.

As long as greedy people have this option, they're going to take it.

The solution is not hoping people start thinking sustainably. It's doing something to prevent people from putting expensive externalities onto others.

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