We cannot afford a ‘CO2 tunnel vision’ — nature restoration is a vital climate response, too.
Imagine reading a book about improving your health. A book that contains a strategy to eliminate certain foods from your diet completely. Obediently you follow this perspective and you keep it up for years. Then a friend gives you a book on the same topic, but it isn’t only about food — it’s also about lifestyle, whether you exercise enough, have nice people around you, find meaning, experience stress, love, etc. A world opens up to you. Your vision expands with new insights.
That’s what happened to me regarding the topic of climate.
I suddenly saw the landscapes around me and the earth beneath my feet; vivid and tangible players in this phenomenon called climate, which are suddenly close to home. Not the cold, abstract computer models that focus only on diet (re: CO2 emissions that need to be drastically reduced). A more ecological view of climate, such as Spanish scientist Millán M. Millán always practised, long pushed to the sidelines in the climate debate, is slowly returning. And it’s about time.
Devastating fires
Fierce images were shown in the media of the California wildfires that started in the Pacific Palisades in Los Angeles on the 7th of January, 2025. At least 180,000 forced evacuees fled the devastating fire, some 10,000 homes burned to the ground, many people lost everything, and at least 24 people died. The fire had been difficult to control due to extremely strong winds, called the Santa Ana wind.
About three months ago, the same thing happened to many Spaniards. From one day to the next, they lost everything, there were over two hundred dead and many wounded, dozens missing, it was an unprecedented devastation. Not a raging fire, but this time it was flood water swallowing everything that caused one of the greatest disasters in Spain. The Spanish government announced days of national mourning in early November, and meanwhile, those affected were fighting for their existence. Soon, as we could see again with the California fires, citizens were pointing to administrators who had allegedly failed, and there are media outlets and organizations, such as Greenpeace that attribute these disasters entirely to climate change. But that is half a lie.
Uncontrollable floods
The weather phenomenon known to Spain as Dana (Depresión Aislada en Niveles Altos, or “isolated high-altitude depression”), in which warm air from the Mediterranean collides with a cold front coming from the polar regions, served as the direct cause of the severe weather — extreme rainfall with hailstones the size of tennis balls in some places that began on October 28 last year, in the south-eastern province of Almería. The storm continued for days and caused severe floods. Images showed the enormous power of the rushing water. The situation was uncontrollable, and for a moment man had no control and the force of nature took over. The heavy rain turned into flooded streets, and roads changed into swirling rivers and mudslides, dragging everything down.
Still from video found on X/ Jerez, Spain, October 2024
Image found on X/CAS International. Valencia, Spain, October 2024 (horse has been rescued)
The images were dystopian, just as we have seen with the latest California fires. The images hit all the more because they show an untenable situation, a disaster that could well be repeated.
It creates fear and insecurity; we tend to think that such major disasters, legally referred to as “force majeure” or an “act of God,” cannot be remedied. But are they? Fortunately, humans do influence how great the impact of such natural disasters is, provided we change our relationship with water. Human influence by working to restore the water cycle also called the hydrological cycle, which has been disrupted by our actions.
Big and small water cycle
The water cycle is the process by which water continually circulates between the earth and the atmosphere. The water on Earth and the water in the atmosphere make up the hydrosphere and include oceans, rivers, lakes, ice sheets and water vapour. The water cycle can be divided into blue and green, or the big and small water cycle. The blue water cycle is the water of the sea that evaporates and rises, forms clouds and precipitates, most of which is at sea and to a lesser extent over land, and comes to us via rivers, lakes and surface waters and is used for human purposes.
Within the blue cycle is the green water cycle: water evaporation from vegetation and forests that precipitates largely on land. In the Amazon, this cycle accounts for 80 percent of the rainfall. The amount of water on Earth remains fairly constant over time. However, the distribution of water among the great reservoirs of ice, fresh water, salt water and atmospheric water is variable and depends on climatic factors. Water moves from one reservoir to another, for example, from the river to the ocean or from the ocean to the atmosphere.
Fatal consequences
Activities, such as deforestation, overgrazing, intensive agriculture, urbanization and draining of wetlands disrupt the water cycle and evapotranspiration of plants and soils affecting precipitation and replenishment of water resources elsewhere. Resulting in drought, extreme weather events and flooding. Countries are increasingly experiencing prolonged droughts and floods due to disruption of the water cycle. This produces climate chaos, the consequences of which are deadly.
To attribute both natural disasters entirely to our fossil fuel addiction ignores other elements that play a vital role. One affects the other and interacts with each other — the massive deforestation (trees absorbing CO2 and water and circulating water) causing drought and water scarcity, and changing everything into concrete, so that rain cannot be absorbed and retained, groundwater cannot be replenished, and floods occur. When a forest is cut down, it immediately destroys the water cycle at that site and thus the cooling mechanism of the forest. It causes warming. Back in the 1850s, dense oak forests in the province of Almería were massively cut down to fire the furnaces of lead smelters, resulting in desertification.
The state of California has largely a Mediterranean climate and experiences periods of prolonged drought. During prolonged droughts, the likelihood of wildfires increases again. For more than a century, farmers in California have pumped up more groundwater than it replaced. California has lost more groundwater than what exists in all its reservoirs. So restoring the water cycle should receive much more attention in disaster management, such as the Californian wildfires that have gripped the entire region.
Largest water depot
Due to the broken water cycle and climate change, you see more and more rainfall in shorter periods and more heavily. With soil barely alive in many places, such as the Valencia region, due to heavy ploughing of the soil, intensive agriculture and excessive pesticide use, heavy rainfall creates serious problems. Instead of being absorbed into the soil and replenishing groundwater, the rain washes away resulting in soil erosion. The Earth’s soil is the largest water depot, but that depends entirely on the amount of organic matter in the soil.
In general, one percent of organic matter in our soil can hold 200,000 litres of water per hectare. In the Valencia region where the floods occurred, the regular earth soil is more dead than alive, and contains less than one percent organic matter, so the earth is unable to absorb the heavy rainfall.
The story of the dams
Not much time after the Spanish floods, the story kept coming up that 256 dams were removed in the last few years at the request of the Spanish government, a record number. The Spanish government of Pedro Sanchez would — as a consequence — be guilty of the disaster. In particular, the radical-right political party VOX proclaimed this news to point out someone to blame for all the suffering, as we could see with the California fires. However, it turned out, according to the newspaper El Diario, that 241 barriers, small dams, were removed that did not hold water, but only stopped the water until the river overflowed them from above and the water continued its course.
Removing these barriers so rivers can entirely flow again stems from the European Biodiversity Strategy to comply with the Water Framework Directive, the policy for assessing the quality of surface and groundwater in Europe. Almost half of Spain’s rivers are in poor condition, also due to the existence of these obstacles. Recently, no large dams have been removed in the municipality of Valencia, just a few dams that cannot handle a flood. The alleged dams are barriers, which hold no water, and have no use, not even for irrigation, experts told the Spanish newspaper.
Natural parc ‘S Albufera, Mallorca. Photo by myself
The role of water in climate policy
Climate change mitigation, adaptation and building resilience, including against disasters, such as the wildfires in Los Angeles and the flood in Valencia, is not possible without water according to ‘India’s water man’ Dr Rajendra Singh and other scientists, hydrologists, environmentalists and experts. The role of water in climate policy was first established at the November 2022 climate summit, COP 27.
Water cycle restauration
Restoration of the water cycle occurs by planting forests that help replenish groundwater, building healthy agricultural soils and water protection and rainwater collection structures, and conservation of rivers and forests. Flowing rivers and a healthy relationship between groundwater and surface water provide the basis for drought and flood protection as if it were insurance against erratic weather.
Slowing down the flow of rainfall and releasing it into the aquifers and water bodies protects against drought and flooding. Flowing rivers act as a buffer against drought and flooding by absorbing excess water during heavy rains and releasing water during dry periods. The construction of natural ponds, waterholes and small lakes reduces the likelihood and intensity of floods. And revitalizing natural ecosystems of forests, grasslands and wetlands, which are also buffers against disasters. So no longer destruction, but restoration of forests, soils and wetlands.
Nature-based solutions
We cannot afford a ‘CO2 tunnel vision’. To cool the planet and reduce water-related disasters such as droughts and floods, the solution also lies in greening the earth. Nature provides the solution. Water is the crux. Restoring the water cycle helps control floods, fires, drought, heat and water scarcity. Droughts and floods are global problems but with solutions driven by local communities.
With the CO2 tunnel vision that has sidelined restoration of the water cycle and good land management, one might wonder how much land and water could not have been protected and restored in the meantime if the public had known how important their local and regional landscapes are to their environment. Fortunately, that realization is now slowly breaking through. It is essential for life on this globe that this two-fold climate vision — reducing emissions and restoring the water cycle — is once again given the full attention it deserves.
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Sources:
-Permaculture Design Course by Permacultura Mediterranea
– Drought, Flood and Climate Change Global challenge, local solution. Dr. Rajendra Singh en Dr. Indira Khurana, March 2023
This article has been published yesterday on Medium in The New Climate!
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