This 3-minute animated YouTube video from Water Stories, depicting the death spiral of the watershed, is an extremely helpful tool for educating ourselves and other people. When we can see the mechanism of destruction, and get other people to see it, we have a better chance of being able to muster the political will to implement the solutions. Solutions which are “embarrassingly simple” (to use a famous phrase from Bill Mollison regarding the solutions to complex problems).
Regardless of where on the planet we live … We can probably all see examples right around us of the things shown in this 3-minute video. Excess paving, removal of trees, landscaping practices that reduce the tree canopy and other surface areas of vegetation, and so on.
In my city and region: The devegetation of the beachside (barrier island), the well-meaning but misguided actions to ease flooding in low-lying areas on the mainland, etc.
And, adding insult to injury, the contamination of the groundwater with herbicides and other poisons.
The things that we think we are doing to ease flooding by spraying herbicides in the canals in the low-lying parts of town (Nova Canal is one), mowing down the vegetation on the banks, dredging the canals deeper, and so on are actually making things worse in the long term. They show it right in the video rivers getting dredged and so on and it just depletes the water table more and more and exacerbates the desertification process.
Every point of elevation above the low poinrs is a point where we have the opportunity and the obligation to catch water and allow it to infiltrate slowly into the ground (“slow, spread, and sink”) rather than let it run off down the denuded slopes and pool in the low-lying areas where we then are tasked with trying to send it “away.”
SIMPLE ACTION STEP!!! Please watch this video and communicate with your neighborhood groups, city officials, county officials and anyone else who will listen so we can all get on the same page about this.
UPDATE June 9, 2023: Water Stories has just posted its wonderful 2-minute animation video “The Revived Water Cycle – how humans can heal planet earth and resolve the climate crisis.”
Thank you so much to Water Stories (waterstories.com) for this and all of their other content which is getting the word out.