In a World of Floods & Droughts – There is A Solution.

This has been a very, very wet summer for a large portion of the world. France had its wettest July since national records began in 1959, receiving double the 1981–2010 average and surpassing the previous record set in 2000. Nevada had a catastrophic flash flood, so did Nebraska. Heavy rainfall in Hiroshima, Japan resulted in a deadly landslide, killing over a dozen people. A great many regions have been breaking daily rainfall records.

The opposite is also true. The world is also experiencing sever droughts, in India, Nepal, China, East Africa, breaking records in Australia, and California.

Earlier this year I had presented a solution to these problems with the hopes that those reading would put them into practice on their own properties and communities. The news mentioned at the beginning of this article is what comes of not incorporating water management in landscape design. These management methods would still be applicable regardless of the rainfall change. It has worked in the Jordan Desert – turning the entire project site from dryland desert to lush forest.

It also worked for the Loess Plateau (an area the size of Belgium) – brown and dry as far as the eye could see, to a green mosaic with patches of blue ponds. Flash floods and droughts have become somewhat of a strange fable to the ears of the young.

The same thing can happen for these areas currently experiencing flash floods and droughts. Would you help that happen by practicing this water management landscape design where you are and by sharing this message online and through example? By working together with these known solutions we can make a safer place for everyone where droughts and floods become like fables to later generations on the lands we worked on.