“Traditional methods of storing water can rejuvenate landscapes and protect land from climate change, according to this intricate primer.
Jain and Franses, founders of The Flow Partnership, an NGO that funds small hydrological programs, decry industrial hydrology and agriculture protocols that sequester water in giant reservoirs and deplete groundwater, resulting in dry, impoverished soil and hotter surface temperatures that exacerbate droughts and floods. Instead, they recommend the small-scale, locally controlled systems of water management that farmers have used for centuries. The authors emphasize
a few simple elements: digging ponds, holes, levees, and dams that prevent rainwater from running off farmland; letting water percolate from these holding structures into the ground, thus recharging aquifers, raising water tables, replenishing wells, and improving soil moisture; and planting trees and other vegetation that release moisture by evapotranspiration through leaf pores, which cools the air and brings rain. (They cite rice paddies in India that lower temperatures by six degrees Celsius through evapotranspiration.) Jain and Franses spotlight many such efforts around the world, including a project in which building small ponds and dams restored flow to seven dried-up rivers in the Indian state of Rajasthan. Aided by well-chosen pictures and diagrams, the authors convey their ideas in lucid prose and intuitive metaphors, as in their comparison of water to money savings: “Water banks must invest in the future by allocating adequate area for holding water and planting trees to achieve profitability (long-term underground water recharge and a continuous water cycle) as well as liquidity (availability of surface water).” They also infuse the book with a lyrical eco-sensibility that celebrates water as the foundation of existence: “The countryside becomes quenched, the fields are like a cell full of renewed energy and bursting with green crops, the air is full of the songs of birds and insects, and there is a full-scale communication of life all around.” The result is a stimulating, hopeful take on humble but profound environmental innovations.
A revelatory treatise on human-scale water management, full of fascinating information and inspiring insights.”
Read the original review by Kirkus Reviews here.
The Language of Water: Ancient Techniques and Community Stories for a Water Secure Future
The Language of Water addresses climate change and the global water crisis by shifting the existing paradigms around our relationship to water with powerful stories and tangible techniques from communities worldwide who are reviving ancient water holding methods, inviting every human being into a new consciousness around our most precious resource.
“‘Water’ and ‘survival’ are pretty much the same thing, so it’s no wonder that local communities, facing record drought and heat, are taking matters into their own hands. These are stirring stories of the recovery of time-honored techniques that will be desperately important as the climate crisis keeps building.” —Bill McKibben, author of The End of Nature
Going beyond simply addressing climate change, The Language of Water addresses how to actively change the climate by learning from communities around the world and their traditional relationships with water. With powerful stories demonstrating tangible, successful water-holding techniques, this book extends an invitation to us all: can we keep the world in balance by learning to speak the language of our most precious resource?
Authors Minni Jain and Philip Franses of The Flow Partnership draw from decades of experience with community-led management of floods and droughts in India, Africa, the United States, Europe, the United Kingdom, and other regions of the world to demonstrate, again and again, how rejuvenated groundwater can cool the atmosphere, revive local economies, restore food security, store carbon, and rebalance our planet. This timely book offers new clarity about the actions that can be taken, individually and collectively, to address our climate challenges. In an era when many villages and cities are overdrawing water from aquifers, relying on desalination for drinking water, and breaking the relationship between humans and the water cycle, this crucial work presents a vision for renewal.
