Busy Beavers & Slow Water Movement are back in the News again

Leave it to Beavers (Full Documentary)

Stop the dams – Irrigate the oceans – Courtesy Steve Hunter

Leave it to Beaver ? No way, says Salt Lake County in the State of Utah

(Steve Griffin | The Salt Lake Tribune)

Just when nature awareness and education movements finally after decades of long hard work actually get the average rural citizen interested and excited about Nature on their own perperties and how to better nuture and maintain  it, then the Authorities &/or Corporate entities under the guise of an eco-green cloak, later on say, "Nah, that's really not such a good idea after all." Here was a story that should have had a happy ending. This entire valley where a natural drainage of Big Willow Creek winds and meanders across numerous properties, everyone is on board with excitement. As you well know, many properties owners have traditionally at times dislike such natural obstacles which they perceive may impede what they had originally intended to use the property for. If that was the case here, then people later on changed their minds. This photo above and to the right is Kelly McAdams walking across a beaver dam in his back yard to remove a bucket that was caught on the top of the dam on Thursday, April 6, 2017. Salt Lake County officials are pressuring McAdams and his neighbors to remove the beaver dams from Big Willow Creek where the stream flows across their properties. They insist the dams have been there for years and should remain because they are natural and provide wetland habitat, but officials say they pose a flood hazard. When is the last time you heard of a group of property owners wanting to quietly get together on their own without the invite of a group of radical monkey-wrenching eco-activist groups to create and protect an ecological wetland area ???

Draper, Utah • Big Willow Creek bends and meanders behind Kelly McAdams' Draper home and her backyard steps down into an urban wildlife preserve.   

Thanks to a string of beaver dams, the creek pools into wetlands teaming with life. Ducks and geese nest on the banks lined with cattails; herons and pelicans visit to dine on the 18-inch carp and catfish. Neighborhood kids also fish the ponds.   

But where McAdams, his wife, Kris Burns, and neighbors on Dunning Court see an ecological sanctuary, Salt Lake County sees "unauthorized modifications to a countywide drainage facility."   

The county Division of Flood Control has ordered them to remove the dams or face a $25-a-day fine, even though federal wildlife officials say these dams enhance the water quality, hydraulics and riparian habitat of an impaired segment of Big Willow Creek. 

"The dams have been here for at least 20 years," said McAdams, who moved in five years ago. "It is unfair they are coming in and destroying the area when there are alternatives."   

Along with neighbor David Dustin, McAdams is fighting the county's dam-removal order, saying it misapplies the county's flood-control ordinance by ignoring the proven benefits beaver dams provide and ways to reduce their risks. 

But county officials say they have a legal obligation to keep waterways open and safe.  Should high water push the beavers' tangle of branches and creek debris downstream, the material could back up the creek onto someone else's property or obstruct culverts, and the county would be liable for the damage, according to Rick Graham, deputy county mayor for operations.   

"The waterways and channels need to be clear and run and serve their purposes. There is a balancing act," Rick Graham said. "The county has demonstrated many times it balances wildlife habitat on creeks and waterways as they run through the city."   

Graham has overruled McAdams' appeal, which is slated to go before an administrative law judge on April 26.  Generations of Westerners have battled beavers because their dam-building clogs irrigation ditches and backs water into inconvenient places. The federal Wildlife Services, the animal-killing arm of the Department of Agriculture, kills about 22,000 beavers a year and many more nuisance beavers are relocated by states.   

For land managers and ecologists, however, beavers are miracle workers when it comes to restoring damaged landscapes, and wildlife agencies encourage property owners to accommodate the animals whenever practical.  Beaver dams help control floods, slow water flows when they're high, connect water tables to floodplains and create wetlands and wildlife habitat, said conservation biologist Allison Jones.   

"You have all these ecosystem services that keep the entire stream corridor functioning as it should," said Jones, with the Wild Utah Project. "Many other municipalities across the county are starting to allow beavers back to perform this critical engineering service."   

McAdams, whose one-acre lot has s360 feet of creek frontage, agrees. Without the dams, the creek channel would narrow to about 2 feet and dry up in late summer, making it impossible for him to pump irrigation water when he needs it most.   

"They want to take this wetland and turn it into a trench," McAdams said. "I'm afraid I might end up in jail over this."  On one dam he installed a flexible 10-inch pipe — a device known as a "beaver deceiver" — allowing water to pass through and help equalize levels on either side.   

The county began raising concerns about the dams two years ago and homeowners above and below McAdams and Dustin have agreed to let the county pull them out by hand, according to Graham. He hopes to remove all Big Willow dams at the same time to minimize disturbance.

(Source)

There are literally tonnes of practical application we can glean by observising nature regarding Beavers, Alluvial Floodplains, the meandering pattern of water courses like rivers, streams etc. I have two links at the bottom of this post which will illustrate what many non-scientists out there have accomplished with a passion for biomimicry to prove Nature's worth at inspiration as opposed the tradition view of nature being so badly designed that scientists have the answer for fixing the imaginary flaws. The links will be provided at the end of this post at the bottom. Now let's report on the importance of slow meandering water courses as opposed to the opposite proposed by Industrial Business who claim to be backed by ecological science.

Slow Water Movement ??? vrs Corporate  Monopoly for the Natural Resource ???

Image - Coca-Cola Company

"USFS Deputy Forest Supervisor Rachel Smith and Patrol Captain Alberto Ortega walk through the brush near the Big Tujunga watershed, a large cluster of the non-native, invasive plant species (Arundo Cane) behind them."

Back on April 22, 2017, I stumbled upon this article about Coca Cola Company's seemingly altruistic concern for Nature and their plans to eradicate the evil Arundo Giant Reed or Cane which is a plague of many Southern California riparian floodplain corridors. At first glance that seemed okay, because I dislike what both non-native invasive plants, Arundo and Tamarisk, have done to take over native riparian habitats throughout the entire west. However, I then watch a (Coca Cola Company video) titled, "Coca Cola and the US Forest Service Tackle Invasive Plants to Replenish Water," which is supposed to be about their honorable proposal to eradicate invasive water gulping plants to allow free flowing water supply to reach Los Angeles from the San Gabriel Mountains like the photograph you see they provide on the above right. Sounds like a noble cause until you watch the video where he explains this and you realize that other giant corporate entities besides Coca Cola like Nestle and others have had ambitious water schemes for years to create a drinking water supply monopoly and sell this same water back to the public by means of bottled water. The Coachella Valley's main newspaper, The Desert Sun, carried an article exposing all these schemes back in March 2015. The article was titled: 

Bottling water without scrutiny COMPANIES TAPPING SPRINGS AND AQUIFERS IN CALIFORNIA WITH LITTLE OVERSIGHT           

Then there was another article on the 89.3 KPCC website titled:    (Can Nestlé, Coca Cola help enviros fight drought?) where the Center for Biological Diversity, sued the USFS over Nestlé's bottled water permit, revealing that their increasing streamflow was a self-serving goal for their company. I'm not a real fan or cheerleader for the Center for Biological Diversity (whose sole purpose is mostly about sue & settle), but I do agree with this quote from the article:

"If the restoration project is about actually restoring habitat, I think that's a noble thing. If it's just to have greater water flow coming down from the Station Fire area, I'm not sure that that actually heals the wounds that have occurred in that landscape."

(Source)

Then there was this little tidbit of collaboration collusion with a Mr. Roger C. Bales, a hydrologist tied to Industrial Agricultural irrigation business interests in the San Joaquin Valley and believe it or not The Nature Conservancy, which is another one of those environmental organizations who have caved into the corporate  business interests deands which in turn has greatly increased their funding and donations. They seemed to have sided with Bales' unproven ideological worldview here with regard the stream hydrological scheme on their own properties in the unscientific assumption that logging and thinning water hogging trees will magically make more volume of water appear in streams to fill reservoirs at lower elevations. UC Merced's Roger Bales' association with Industrial Agriculture in the Central Valley and even the Nature Conservancy association with the water bottling companies who have donated money to them makes a person take pause. Either way, these unholy alliances expose the modern day  environmental movement's hypocrisy for funding being masked behind a cloak of eco-green. And that's really sad because years ago I liked the work they did. But like other phony so-called ecology non-profits, I've pulled away from them. This is yet another one of those lying, "necessary evil for the greater good" justification schemes. Just so that folks know and understand something about these tree thinning/removal schemes mention by Roger Bales and the Nature Conservancy, it has been totally debunked and found to be untrue. California's four or five year drought along with the bark beetle loss of over 100 millions trees has not produced more water in streams or rivers to fill downstream reservoirs.

BREAKING NEWS: Apparently Trees don't really Gulp, Guzzle & Water Hog, only Humans do that

Let's change the subject back to why 'Slow Water Movement' is far more important than what Municipalities & Big Business Interests!

Image - Bureau of Land Management

Image - acegeography.com

Many people think of floodplains as something negative which ruins and destroys vaulable property. The reality is they have always provided an abundance of resources for many living things. Mankind as a rule has had economic interests in floodplain soils for farming which have a build up of nutrient rich soils created over thousands of years. But floods still continue tp be an annual occurence and they aren't exactly conducive to the type of neat organized plans farmers, cities and industries prefer nor can they be tolerated. So science has come up with several various technology strategies to prevent this from happening, with the most popular being dredging and straight channelizations of water courses whether a river or a creek. But even this can many times be more problematic than beneficial. In the Southern California view of things, rainwater is something meant to be rapidly transported on it's way towards oceans and away from human habitats and their livelihoods. And yet they'll spend million on importing water 100s to 1000s of miles away to be utilized as drinking water. This same drinking water they use for watering their landscapes. But the meandering slows the water down, doesn't prevent water from going back to the sea, but allows many things to benefit from it's presence along the way. But it's this slowness of meandering floodplains that prevents the rapid transport of water which should be replicated through biomimicry to water various city landscapes and home gardens by means of rain harvesting infrastructure. Without revealing what type of infrastructure, I'll post a couple of links I've already written on the subject which will point out where such respect for water has allowed inventive people to engineer some pretty amazing projects, which allow both water to be harvested and less destructive volumes of water ending up in creeks and rivers which can create unnatural flooding. Watch this three minute video on why rivers curve and meander.

This meandering part of the stream or river which looks very much like an elbow or bend in the river is known as a oxbow. In the photo of the floodplain further up, you can see older oxbows where the river once ran and changed course which allowed curved lakes to remain as part of the greater floodplain. The animation above demonstrates over time just how oxbows develop and become cut off from the main river channel. But again, industrial and urban storm drainage infrastructure could be used to slow this flooding and racing to the ocean way down and syphon much of this polluted street water from entering creeks and streams where high volumes can do the most damage. So much wasted street water like the example below of a Los Angeles street corner that floods, often with very little rainfall.

Image via Sterling Davis / Curbed LA flickr pool

Then we have example of smart curb-side and Parkway median landscaping where rainwater harvesting is taken advantage of which is saving cities fom using their municipal drinking water for irrigating public and private homeowner landscapes. I'll provide some links below this picture below which illustrate many of the designs intelligent creative people have made. 

Image - State College Pennsylvania

Rain Water Harvesting Infrastructure Design Concepts

Tucson Arizona: Regenerating Parks & Parkways through Biomimicry of Floodplains

Beavers can help battle ongoing Drought in desert-like places in Elko, Nevada

(Photo credit: BLM, Elko District - 1980)

(Photo by Bryce Gray)

This is an area about Beavers in which the average human being who likes nature has no clue about the incredible variety of habitats beavers can adapt to and improve. Like the documentary I linked to at the very top of this post, most films depict beavers familes living in a so-called pristine ecosystem loaded with birch, aspen, cottonwood and willows. But take this habitat above. In the west when Europeans arrived, they have attempted to raise livestock like they did previously in the wetter habitats of central or northern Europe and eastern United States. These plants do not respond the same way to herbivore disturbance the same way other plants in wetter climates do. Rather than four seasons, most lower elevation habitats in the west have only two, a wet & a dry season. So grasses and other plants do not recover quickly.  Below is an article from Northwestern University which deals with climate change and how beavers can be used as an incredibly beneficial tools to improve the environment which has been ruined through human stupidity as land stewards.

BALANCING BEAVER AND BEEF

The rebound of Susie Creek and Maggie Creek in the adjacent watershed began in the early 1990s, when Evans approached ranchers leasing BLM land along the waterways with a proposal to improve grazing practices and restore the riparian habitat, primarily for the health of local fisheries.   

“A lot of it was done for the reintroduction of Lahontan cutthroat trout,” Evans said, referencing Nevada’s state fish, which faces an uphill battle to survive in the face of climate change. Evans said that the area is predicted be out of the species’ temperature range within the next couple decades.   

Fences were put in to restrict cattle access to riparian corridors, enabling vegetation to reclaim the creek bed, trapping sediment and building a floodplain. By 1996, a number of willow saplings had taken root, and by 2003, beaver recolonized the creeks as an unintended consequence of the restoration effort.   

“I didn’t know it would turn out the way it did,” said Evans, noting that throughout the BLM’s Elko District there has been a “build it and they will come” relationship between rehabilitated habitat and beaver. Although Evans does not know precise population data, beaver are now found in a number of regional streams, including an 11-mile stretch of Susie Creek and approximately 16 miles of the Maggie Creek basin.   

Beaver are hardly newcomers to the area. In colonial times the species used to be nearly ubiquitous throughout North America before their pelts ignited a fashion craze that fueled exploration of the continent and eradicated them from much of their historic habitat range.  Besides humans, beaver are perhaps the animal that exerts the greatest influence on the natural environment, and the wide-scale elimination of the species had a profound impact on water resources.

From the early 19th century to the late 20th century, an estimated 48-64 million acres of American wetlands were converted to dry land, with much of that habitat loss linked to the simultaneous decline in the beaver population.   

“Look at those numbers in terms of water that’s being held,” said Dr. Suzanne Fouty, an Oregon-based hydrologist who works with the U.S. Forest Service and has visited Susie and Maggie creeks. Fouty likened that water storage system to savings accounts.   

“In the West, you want to make sure that when you get a windfall of water, your savings accounts are ready to take it in,” she said “Those savings accounts are essentially empty right now.” But beaver habitat can change that, she said. “Instead of (water) racing downstream and flooding, it’s slowed down and stored and you have all these areas of savings accounts being filled up.”   

And those “savings” influence more than just surface water, as they can percolate through soil to become groundwater and recharge aquifers. At Maggie Creek, a one- to two-foot rise in the water table has been observed, even during drought years.   

Evans said that beaver habitat has such tremendous water storage potential because the species essentially converts a watershed into “a slow-moving lake” progressing through a staircase of beaver ponds, instead of as a gushing torrent. She believes that’s how the area’s streams once flowed in their original state, since soil profiles still show the traces of long periods of standing water in the valley bottom.   

“I’m sure the beaver were a large mechanism in that,” Evans said. “They were such an important part of the ecology of the system. You see how prevalent they can be.”  But grazing, too, can change the landscape. Dan Gralian is the general manager of the 400,000-acre TS Ranch, bounded to the east by Maggie Creek. He acknowledged that generations of abusive ranching practices hurt the land where trappers left off. “If you remove the stability of the land – the plants and the root structure – that’s what holds the land together,” said Gralian. 

“If you remove that, it becomes vulnerable to erosion. And that did occur over a large area of the West and this is one of those areas.”  That destructive legacy is still evident from the old, dry irrigation ditches sitting 10-15 feet above the present level of Susie Creek, where beaver and cattle are attempting to coexist as unlikely neighbors. “This is the story of the West,” says Evans. “When you have poor grazing practices and beaver together, it's totally not sustainable.

(Photo credit: BLM, Elko District - 2011)

(Photo by Bryce Gray)

Here in the photo above is that same location as the one in the 1980  of Maggie Creek that you saw of how dry and eroded the area once was, this 2011 image shows the stream’s wetter transformation. But also take close note of a freshly chewed Silver Sagebrush stump which is a sure sign of beaver activity along Susie Creek. Hardly no one would ever appreciate this from watching all those Disney type documentaries over the past several decades. Who would ever associate Beaver with such dam construction materials ? Even food sources and diets of beaver can change from riparian trees. In addition to willow and cottonwood, beavers will eat cattail roots, blackberry vines, fennel, pondweed, and various scrub plants. But cattails can often overwhelm a pond and crowd out open water, here is a video showing how beaver can even help keep that under control through summer feeding on this aquatic plant.

This video is only about 25 seconds long, but well illustrates how well they can maintain small ponds and lakes. We already know how things go without their presence if cattails are not manually (even chemically) dealt with to maintain open water for fish and other creatures. Below here the Northwest University article continues:

TRANSFORMING LANDSCAPES AND LIVELIHOODS

Whether beaver can be used on a broader scale to help the West conserve dwindling water resources remains to be seen, but the recolonization of streams in northern Nevada provides a hopeful snapshot of their climate change mitigation potential.   

“Nevada is so water-limited, if beavers can transform this landscape, they can do it anywhere,” said Fouty.   

Similar projects have taken root in other parts of the West. In Washington state, Forest Service officials are using reintroduced beaver to increase water resources for coho and Chinook salmon. In Colorado, “nuisance” beaver are being relocated from population centers to habitat where their ecological services will be less disruptive. And in Idaho in the 1940s, the state Department of Fish and Game launched a stranger-than-fiction campaign to parachute beavers in crates into the backcountry.   

Whatever role beaver ultimately play in the future of the West, they will need their significant environmental footprint to find a balance with ranching and other land uses. But if the BLM’s Elko District is any indication, that’s certainly possible.   

“We didn’t recognize that we have similar goals,” Griggs said, noting that ranchers like him have quite a bit in common with their aquatic neighbors. 

“I have a lot of respect for beaver. They’re probably the hardest-working things in the animal kingdom. We just needed to figure out a way to have them work for us.”

(Source: Northwestern University)

Historical Photos Reveal & Illustrate Change

 Photos: Bureau of Land Management

How beavers have enhanced the Susie Creek Watershed in north-central Nevada since 1991

http://www.resilientdesign.org/how-beavers-are-coming-to-the-rescue-in-an-age-of-climate-change

Rough and Beautiful Places in Nevada

Journal of Rangeland Applications - Incredible Befores & Afters

Practical Grazing Management to Maintain or Restore Riparian Functions and Values on Rangelands

TOM WARREN & CAROL EVANS Bureau of Land Management

http://elkodaily.com/news/maggie-creek-ranch-and-the-blm/article_2f300645-517b-53c0-9901-4a3fa16fb5c2.html

http://www.rangemagazine.com/features/summer-16/range-su16-rough-and-beautiful.pdf

I loved that read and the setting for which it was referencing. Again, it gives folks a different take on the variety of habitats that Beavers can sustainably benefit. Also interesting was the reasons for reintroducing the Beaver. While they had to convince the ranchers of improvements to the grazing habitat, the other reasons were just as important. Remember, "restore the riparian habitat, primarily for the health of local fisheries." And of course the prime subject was reintroducing the Lahotan Cutthroat Trout. This reminded me of other important fisheries which could benefit from a natural meandering floodplain being restored for the benefit of juvenile fish like the native fish of the Colorado River and Salmon of California.

Photos by Jacob Katz

The top photo is from a program started to reintroduce juvenile Salmon back into floodplains of the Yolo Bypass in Northern California where much of it is farmland. With cooperation with one farmer, the fish were proven to grow faster and fatten up better than if they were forced to stay within the main river channel where there is less food and more predators. The very things they dealt with here are identical to challenges faced by native Colorado River fish like the Razorback Sucker, whose juveniles also benefit from floodplain nurseries. Anyway, both stories of the two fish were fun and interesting and highlighted the value of floodplains

Floodplain Farmlands Benefit Juvenile Western Native Fish

Image - Biographic 

This last topic below hits close to home for me because the beavers of western Riverside County in California were prospering wonderfully, until some official experts decided they weren't the original inhabitants of the landscape (this is a flat out lie) and they mandated that they be killed or moved. The other bogus story was beaver were destroying the habitat of an endangered songbird. Another rumor was that drinking water officials viewed them as fouling the water. And yet another lie.

Success and Failure in Western Riverside Californa with regards Beavers

Image - Pail Mason - Lake Skinner Temecula Ca

This first link below is to a post by Duane Nash of Ventura who has a passionate love for everything to do with Beavers and follows their historical and present locations within the state, but especially Southern California. Duane touches on the Santa Margarita River canyon southwest of the city of Temecula where Beavers have even dwelled within the city's Murrieta Creek. The second post is mine comparing human dams to Beaver dams. But I also touch on the tragety that happened to this Lake Skinner you see here in the photos above and below. The other excuse for removal was that these beavers were destroying the Least Bell's Vireo & Southwestern Willow Flycatcher habitat who need willows. This is a sham because beaver actually expand riparian habitats creating more resources for other creatures. In an ironic twist, when the beaver ponds dried out after the beaver were removed and dams destroyed, the invasive Tamarisk moved in and took the place of willows. 

Southern California's Santa Margarita River: Undammed by Man, But Not Beaver

How human dams destabilize river food webs & Beaver Dams stabilize them

Image - Aaron Claverie - The Press-Enterprise

Further references on Lake Skinner Beavers

Management by assertion: beavers and songbirds at Lake Skinner (Riverside County, California)

http://www.martinezbeavers.org/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2014/11/Lake-skinner.pdf

http://www.octrackers.com/beavertrackandsign.htm

Practical Application for Biomimicry of both Meandering Floodplains & Beaver Dams

Floodplain Farmlands Benefit Juvenile Western Native Fish

Rain Water Harvesting Infrastructure Design Concepts

Tucson Arizona: Regenerating Parks & Parkways through Biomimicry of Floodplains

Heavy Winter precipitation in the Western United States is apparently meaningless

Is the California drought finally over ??? Incessant rainfall and snowfall leads to terrific flooding in the Golden State as thousands of homes are evacuated 

Image from The Daily Mail
But officials also warned that though the rain has eased conditions, the drought isn't completely over

The average person falls for the big Media bluff that all is well when weather conditions take an apparent turn about from the long hard drought. Especially when it's an extreme turn of events like the massive snowfalls and rain flooding events presently hitting California and other western regions. In the back of people's minds they are telling themselves things are back to the good ol'days. But now after Californian's have been praying for rain for five years, now they are praying for a break in the rainfall. Perhaps they may believe what the UC Merced Hydrologist Roger C. Bales theorized was correct after all. Get rid of all those greedy water sucking trees and streamflows will rise. Less trees gulping water means fuller streams. Not so fast. Most of that so-called science about removal and thinning of Sierra Nevada Forest trees was more of a public relations stunt funded and backed by the giant Timber Industry and down stream Industrial Agriculture business interests which has a love affair with massive flood irrigation methodology. The imaginary myth was theorized that less forest trees gulping down water would translate more water in streams and rivers filling up reservoirs. While I looked for research on any type of documentation of millions of dead trees actually proving this reverse phenomena to be true a couple years ago, I hadn't found any until now. Apparently the research had been there a little over a year ago, but got very little success in attracting Media attention. Not as sexy as Roger Bales and Michael Goulden's theories I guess.

Recent tree die-offs have had little effect on streamflow in contrast to expected increases from hydrological studies

Images from Nature.com

Clockwise from top left the photos are Spain, Colorado, New Mexico and Argentina.

We've all read the stories and seen all the horrific  photographs of what Mountain pine beetles have done to the western forests over the past decade due to hotter temperatures and drier summers. These bark beetles have infested and killed  thousands of acres of not only western pine forests, but other forests around the globe are now also in trouble as well. Researchers like Roger C. Bales (UC Merced) and Michael L. Merced (UC Irvine) have previously predicted that as trees died or were mechanically removed by logging and thinning, streamflows would increase because fewer trees would be greedily gulping up water through their roots and transpiring it up into the atmosphere. In the imaginations of the Hydrology boys, less trees equate more water runoff for agriculture down in California's Central & San Joaquin Valleys. Back in December 2015, a study by  the University of Utah geology and geophysics professor Paul Brooks and his colleagues in Arizona, Colorado and Idaho, found that if too many trees die, then compensatory processes would kick in and might actually reduce water availability. This is the exact opposite of what Bales and Goulden speculated would happen. But what Brooks and others discovered is that when large areas of trees dieoff, the forest floor becomes sunnier, warmer and windier, which causes winter snow and summer rain to evaporate rather than slowly recharging groundwater. In fact in describing what happens with the snow which usually melts and slowly percolates into the ground, what actually happened was a phenomena called "sublimation." This process of sublimation is where snow and ice change into water vapor in the air without first melting into water. The opposite of sublimation would be "deposition", where water vapor changes directly into ice (such a snowflakes and frost). So what happens with much of that heavy snow we've seen in recent photos does not all melt and infiltrate into the subsoil layers, but rather a good percentage of the snow evaporates up into the drier warmer atmosphere. What is interesting is that the regions studied were much of the high elevation headwaters areas for the Colorado River which fill down stream reservoirs like Lake Powell and Lake Mead which have been experiencing rapidly falling water levels. This effects water potential for Arizona and Southern California.

Abstract:

"Recent bark beetle epidemics have caused regional-scale tree mortality in many snowmelt-dominated headwater catchments of western North America. Initial expectations of increased streamflow have not been supported by observations, and the basin-scale response of annual streamflow is largely unknown. Here we quantified annual streamflow responses during the decade following tree die-off in eight infested catchments in the Colorado River headwaters and one nearby control catchment. We employed three alternative empirical methods: (i) double-mass comparison between impacted and control catchments, (ii) runoff ratio comparison before and after die-off, and (iii) time-trend analysis using climate-driven linear models. In contrast to streamflow increases predicted by historical paired catchment studies and recent modeling, we did not detect streamflow changes in most basins following die-off, while one basin consistently showed decreased streamflow. The three analysis methods produced generally consistent results, with time-trend analysis showing precipitation was the strongest predictor of streamflow variability (R2 = 74–96%). Time-trend analysis revealed post-die-off streamflow decreased in three catchments by 11–29%, with no change in the other five catchments. Although counter to initial expectations, these results are consistent with increased transpiration by surviving vegetation and the growing body of literature documenting increased snow sublimation and evaporation from the subcanopy following die-off in water-limited, snow-dominated forests. The observations presented here challenge the widespread expectation that streamflow will increase following beetle-induced forest die-off and highlight the need to better understand the processes driving hydrologic response to forest disturbance."

(Source)

Tree mortality is increasing worldwide which also includes Canada

Image - Natural Resources Canada

Tree mortality is increasing worldwide including Canada

"Tree mortality will likely increase in areas where extreme weather events become more frequent. Climate change projections indicate that in some parts of Canada, droughts and other extreme events are expected to become more frequent in the future. These changes could trigger increases in tree mortality and episodes of forest decline in affected areas, posing challenges for forest management and the long-term supply of forest resources and services, including carbon balance."

So just how well are all these forests regenerating on their own without mankind's help and interference ??? Despite Environmental Activist insistence that this is the only way Nature can heal, in almost all cases the natural world is failing!

Image - University of Colorado Boulder

Researcher Monica Rother at the site of the 2000 Walker Ranch fire in Boulder County.
Eighty percent of plots surveyed there contained no new trees.

The studies and observations by the researchers from the University of Colorado Boulder exposes the bleak reality. It makes sense though. Trees under extremely high stress from drought, pine beetle attacks and catastrophic wildfire events will dump most of what's left of their energy resources into defensesive strategies (Survival) and very little towards offensive strategies (seed production). Here are a few excerpts from the report:

“It is alarming, but we were not surprised by the results given what you see when you hike through these areas,” said Rother, who earned her doctorate from CU Boulder in 2015 and works as a fire ecologist at Tall Timbers Research Station in Tallahassee, Florida. 

Among the most barren sites were those of the 2000 Walker Ranch fire in Boulder County and the 2000 Bobcat Gulch fire in Larimer County, where approximately 80 percent of plots surveyed contained no new young trees.  

“This should be a wake-up call, that under the warming trends associated with human-caused climate change, significant shifts in forest extent and vegetation types are already occurring,” said Veblen. “We are seeing the initiation of a retreat of forests to higher elevations.”  

Previous research has suggested that hotter, more severe fires make it harder for the forest to bounce back by killing mature trees and reducing seed stock. But the study found that even after lower-intensity fires, presumed to have had less effect on mature trees and seed stock, seedlings were still scarce. Hotter, drier areas at lower elevations or on south-facing slopes had the fewest seedlings.  

“Fire severity is definitely relevant, but climate appeared to play the greatest role,” in limiting forest recovery, said Rother.  

“I don’t want to present this as being entirely negative,” said Veblen. “For me, the negative aspect is what it indicates about the future.”

(Source)

So the main thrust of the message from this report is that it now seems that Nature is no longer able to restore itself in many areas. Humans have done so much extensive damage that it is also necessary for them to actually intervene and mechanical help Nature. The protesting and politically motivated wilderness designation or Nation Park status will never work. Unfortunately most people (& this includes Scientists) do not have the full understanding of how the natural world functions and operates. Much of our understanding and progress has been held back and stuck in neutral because of of silly ideologically driven worldview as mandated by this world's Scientific Orthodoxy which controls the prevailing scientific thought which has infected all Academia. Way too much time and energy has been spent by Academia and environmental organizations on religious concepts such as (Argument from Poor Design) to battle against what they call religious fundies. The argument basically trashes numerous components of our planet's natural world as being flawed, imperfect and badly designed. The argument then promotes the lame idea that this is proof there is no creator because an intelligent designer would never have created or engineered things in such & such a way. Hence, instead of creating technological innovations which apply biomimicry or biomimetics (replicating natural designs when it comes to technological innovation by observing designs found in Nature), our world's intellectuals have instead pursued innovation based on flawed human reasoning and understanding. This is what has brought us much of the genetic engineering in agriculture and a plethora of dangerous toxic synthetic chemicals to deal with the imbalance in pest invasion that humans ultimately caused in the first place. Nature have never worked that way and nature has kept balance for countless 1000s of years without human interference. Suddenly now there are some Biomimicry organizations who are on board with replicating natural designs, but they have to first undo deprogram all the people who have been fed the prevailing secular koolaid and then re-educate people as to how nature really works. This is not so much a slam against the worldview obsessed as it is a wake up or shake up call for people everywhere, irrespective of your belief system, that nature no matter how one believes if origined, has never been flawed, imperfect or badly designed. This is where flawed thinking brought California the inept theory of tree removal bringing us more water. Do you see how this has now backfired ??? Here is another example of how Forest ecosystem failure and collapse needs human intervention from India:

In order to restore tropical rainforests, it is not enough to simply set up protected areas and leave them to their own devices. In particular, tree species with large fruit and seeds distributed by birds will have to be actively planted. This is one of the conclusions of a large-scale study by scientists from ETH Zurich in the Western Ghats, the mountain range running along the western coast of India. 

“For rainforest restoration projects to be successful, you have to give special attention to these trees,” says Kettle. “If you want to encourage them to spread, the only option is to collect their seeds, set up tree nurseries and then actively plant out the saplings at a later stage.”

(Source)

Nature is becoming less resilient and no longer able to sustain itself as it has done for countless 1000s of years. One disappointing thing about the study of dead trees not increasing stream flows was the silence on the phenomena known as "hydrological descent" in which living trees (also shrubs), even when dormant, which pump excess surface water during the rainy season down into deeper layers of the subsoil layers helping to recharge the water table aquafirs. That should have been included in this study and it wasn't. Can you imagine what low percentage of this California rainy season's (2016-2017) precipitation has actually percolated into the California landscape and how much has blown out back into the Pacific Ocean through massive flooding runoff ? After years of drought a lot of bare ground will almost fossilize to where the soils pores will close up tightly and the phenomena of capiliraary action needs time to heal properly. The state of California has no infrastructure in place to funnel massive amounts of this excess freshwater back towards the interior desert riparian habitats. Think of aquatic environments like Mono Lake, Owens Lake and further south the Salton Sea which already has a major ecological water problem. Or how about any of the other maze of dry lake beds throughout the Mojave Desert. Could such filling of these large natural basins have a moderating effect on the state's regional, if not statewide climate and weather ? Not to mention benefits to wildlife ? According to all of the above studies we just briefly touched on, humans are going to have to actually intervene now and make the necessary corrections. Instead of dumping money and manpower into ineffective angry protest and destructive civil disobedience, people need to go beyomd clicking "LIKE" on a Facebook page article about environment and physically get out doors and start restoring ecosystems based on natural design which was never ever flawed. However, how well historically has that been working out for us ??? 

Can collective groups among mankind  really work together to reverse these trends we've just read about ???

We all know how well it turned out for Humpty Dumpty. All the King's horses and all the King's men were unqualified and ill equipped to fix anything back together again. Governments, Business Leaders, Scientists & Religious leaders likewise do not have the answers nor the management skills we need for a real world viable solution either. The common people around the world are taking to the streets in a last desperate resort in protest and they too are likewise ill equipped to put anything back together again. The people protesting are often not exactly sure of what they are protesting about when interviewed by some in the media. It doesn't matter what they are protesting, or what message is on their signs because they are usually are nothing more than hollow slogans. And this is taking place most everywhere globally. Fixing and correcting things takes real cooperation and working peacefully together. That's not how this world we're all forced to live in works presently. Even today's angry environmental movements seem to have no answers other than protesting something or someone they hate. They never really offer any viable alternatives other than kicking other people off a piece of some sacred real estate and saying, "Nature will just find a way" to heal itself. In the studies above that will not happen. Each and every day, Salman Rushdie's word in that CNN interview ring true:

"Classically, we have defined ourselves by the things we love. By the place which is our home, by our family, by our friends. But in this age we're asked to define ourselves by hate. That what defines you is what pisses you off. And if nothing pisses you off, who are you?" 

Salman Rushdie

There really are some decent organizations out there that actually go beyond hate motivated protesting. They also demonstrate how energy is better spent educating the public in following natural design and in participating in hands on habitat restoration work. One of the main organizations that comes to my mind is the group, (Back to Natives Restoration) who actually provide a valuable service to local urban communities and in education work to the public. Same can be said for other native plant nurseries like (Las Pilitas Native Plant Nursery) and (Tree of Life Native Plant Nursery) who offer not only healthy viable native plants, but also extensive educational programs to help enlighten their customers and general public as to how nature really works and replicating installation and care with less water and no industrially manufactured science-based synthetic (fertilizers & pesticides) chemicals. All these organizations are strictly founded and identify themselves based on something they truly love, not something they hate or what pisses them off.

In Conclussion

At the very least we know where things really stand concerning our Earth's environment when the media attempts to paint a rosy picture of things not being all that bad as we first thought. It's worse folks. We also now know for a certainty that all those Politically motivated and Industrial Business interest funded hydrological studies conducted at several California Universities were dead wrong from the start. In fact their flawed schemes were never close to the truth, but many of us already knew that.

Water provides a Hydropatterning Blueprint for Rooting Architecture & "Infrastructure"

 

The scent of water in the air or that smell of ran in the air is not a whole lot of moisture. In reality it's nothing more than mere molecules unseen to the eye, yet easily detected by our sense of smell. The point is, it doesn't take much for us to detect water's presence air and that was the point of a new study on how plant rootsystems have the ability to locate where water is and grow their roots towards that higher source of water through sensing. Below is a study published back on June 9th 2014 which I read during my trip in California, on a plant root's ability to sniff out water where ever it may be found. Only now am I commenting on this phenomena. In so doing, the presence of water within any type of soil geology may actually influence the architectural pattern a tree develops for it's eventual mature rooting infrastructure. Understanding and developing appreciation for such plant mechanisms and the environmental triggers that influence their internal sensors which creates growth response even if we don't totally understand all the processes going on, allow us to plan and design our landscape and restoration projects for success. I'll have some examples of plants that made me curious about all of this at the end. Trees such as those in the Desert Mesquite pes family or even Poplar or Sycamore family are great choices for study as these trees are almost obsessed in their search for water. Understandable since they are a riparian water loving tree, even if it's 20'+ to 200'+ feet below the surface of a dry desert wash. If you’re a plant, [especially in dry locations like where I hail from] then finding and exploiting available water resources is pretty crucial to your existence.

Hence I've written previously about my own testing and playing with seed germination of desert plants such as Mesquite, Palo Verde and Acacia. But sometimes this can be tricky even for these desert dwellers. Localized water availability in soil can be highly variable depending on it's structure and climate, especially where I come from in the southwestern part of the USA, and those plants native to this region must gather water quickly and as efficiently as possible from the environment before putting on much top growth. They may remain small for some years before taking off like a rockrt upwards to 30' or 30' tall. The research in this article below finds that they have the ability to sniff it out water even when it is not immediately available to them. So how do they do it ? As with most of these research papers, much of it may be boring, but keep in mind that you don't have to understand the science of just how plants do this, you only need to be aware that they have this ability and this should influence you in the way you care for and maintain them. It also calls on you to train plant's roots for their future survivability in the landscape or in some remote backcountry out planting as with habitat restoration. The article was called:

"Water provides a Hydropatterning Blueprint for Rooting Architecture"

"Soil is a microscopic maze of nooks and crannies that hosts a wide array of life. Plants explore this environment by developing a complex branched network of roots that tap into scarce resources such as water and nutrients. How roots sense which regions of soil contain water and what effect this moisture has on the architecture of the root system has been unclear."

Wissenschaft – Design – Animation

"New research from a team led by Carnegie's José Dinneny focuses on how physical properties of a root's local environment control root branching and through which developmental pathways these signals act. Their findings, published by Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, describe a novel process called hydropatterning that allows plants to optimize root branching for water uptake."

 photo is credited to Pooja Aggarwal

Cross section of Rice root

"Plant roots form a branching network like that above ground, with lateral roots growing out from a main axis. Because water is not uniformly distributed in soil, the structure of the root system networks needs to be regulated in ways that optimizes soil exploration, while limiting growth into water-poor regions." 

"Dinneny and his team developed methods for growing roots in environments in which the distributions of water and air around the root were highly controlled. By analyzing the position where new branches formed, the researchers found that plants tend to place these root branches in close proximity to where water exists, while tiny root hairs appear in areas exposed to air."

photo is credited to Neil Edwards II

This is a cross section of a maize root 

"Dinneny and his team developed methods for growing roots in environments in whiche the distributions of water and air around the root were highly controlled. By analyzing the position where new branches formed, the researchers found that plants tend to place these root branches in close proximity to where water exists, while tiny root hairs appear in areas exposed to air."

Their work revealed that opposite sides of the same single root are optimized to take advantage of air or water resources when the environment is varied. Working with colleagues Malcolm Bennett and Sacha Mooney at the University of Nottingham, micro-scale X-ray tomography was used to build 3-D models of roots growing in soil and revealed that similar processes occur in this more-natural environment. 

 "We had completely underestimated the spatial acuity of the patterning system in the root. It was fascinating to discover that roots can respond to environmental conditions that vary over distances as small as 100 microns, which is the size of a typical soil particle," said Dinneny."

The team named the new phenomenon hydropatterning and they observed it in several plant species, including the important crop plants maize and rice. The process is controlled by signaling pathways in the plant that are distinct from previously characterized drought responses suggesting that hydropatterning could be important for regulating root branching under non-stressful growth conditions. 

 "This simple observation opens up a whole new area of investigation for us," Dinneny said. "How plant cells distinguish between wet and dry environments is an important frontier that may lead to a better understanding of how plants efficiently use water."

(source)

Wissenschaft – Design – Animation

"Using technology called x-ray microscale computed tomography to create 3D reconstructions of root architecture, researchers have been able to peer beneath the soil surface to see exactly what is going on. They find that plant roots are able to distinguish between water and air at extremely small scales – as little as a tenth of a millimetre – and that this is what determines the patterns of root branching along the main root axis; a process they term hydropatterning." 

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My old place in Anza California

Take special note of the Jeffrey Pine which you see here in front of the Mobile Home. Notice the pine tree's shadow on the ground and the silhouetted shadow outline of the cottonwood tree which is to it's left. This tree when it was around 12-15 foot tall in 1986 had one branch of it's root system grew clear around the right side of this mobile home  the back of to a garden water hose spigot which was over 60+ foot away where there always was a constant leak dripping,  which caused the immediate area of soil to remain damp. More details on this tree below.

riverpartners.org

My best example of this plant water sniffing phenomena that actually got me to even consider what and how roots do what they do was when I first began to ponder just how a Cottonwood tree in my front yard managed to send forth a root system which made a beeline over 60+ feet away from the tree to the region where the utilities entered in the back along the side of my Mobile Home. This was back when I lived in Anza California at my new home which I purchased in June of 1985. This hybrid Cottonless Cottonwood in the front yard was only 10-12 foot tall, but was at least a few years old. The previous owner planted it in 1980 when he developed the site. The people were on and off weekenders and the cottonwood no doubt struggled a bit in the beginning. You should know however that the water facet for the hose bib had an ongoing dripping leak, so over time the immediate soil around the utility box was damp, but not necessarily wet. What alerted my attention to the root's presence was a sapling which sprouted out of the ground next to the faucet. I knew the tree was incapable of producing seed, so I dug down and sure enough hit the root. I did cut it way back, but it was always an ongoing issue the whole time I lived there every few years. Cottonwood roots are incredible as the picture from riverpartners.org reveals. This particular cottonwood was rescued after a flashflood in which five of the main branching roots were over 25 foot long. 

Previously I wrote about the roots of the native California Fan Palm in the deserts of Southeastern California. I had never given any consideration into palm tree rooting development, since I had always assumed as do most people that their roots are mostly fibrous roots as those of most grasses and probably don't stray far from the main region of the tree. I was wrong as I eyewitnessed California Fan Palm roots in one dry wash growing almost 25 foot away from one living tree where they had followed several cracks and fractures in the canyon wall bedrock. At my mother's place where I have partially removed some of her water sucking lawn, I stumbled upon Mexican Fan Palm roots 15 foot away from largest and only palm as you can see above left. I have since installed 4 other palms, both California and Mexican Fan Palm to create an Oasis effect around the already existing Baja Faiyduster, Pride of Barbados and Screwbean Mesquite. The lawn will be total history by next year. My post about my trip up to Mortero Palms Oasis and the pictures I took earlier in my trip near Ocotillo & to Torrey Pines State Reserve also brought incredible visual examples of just how natives seek out water by means of existing pathways provided by soil and bedrock structure this past May 2014 are here:

Getting to the Root of why Natives rule & Exotics struggle or outright fail

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Nitrogen-tracking tools for better crops and less pollution

Now notice what the researchers have also found out regarding the effects on plant root system growth and overall infrastructure when nitrogen is scare.

"Nobody knew the mechanisms of how low nitrogen affects plant roots,"

In their laboratory at Michigan Tech, Busov and Yordanov planted Poplar seedlings under normal nitrogen levels. Then they transplanted them to a medium that contained almost no nitrogen.  What happened? Read the link below and my comments in conclusion below here.

MTU Scientists Get To The Root Of Poplar Tree Genes, Nutrient Efficiency

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Conclusions:

So exactly what do we gain and come away with here after reading both of these studies ? First, it isn't necessary to understand nor completely comprehend everything these researchers bring to our attention. These researchers live and speak in a world all their own with terminology loaded with intellect speak. To often this prevents the pursuit of biomimicry. In fact you should know that many biotechs like Monsanto, etc, while claiming to champion replicating what nature does, actually view nature as flawed, imperfect and a lousy designer. They believe that their collective genius can accomplish a far better product. But to the credit of these researchers and maybe the journalist who put things together, they used terms and illustrations which I believe actually help the average person understand from a design perspective with purpose and intend. Take the researcher who was looking for that gene he said would be the "high hieracrhical regulator" where he used the term "Boss Gene" which would control all function of rootsystem growth. Here's what came next:

“Imagine a manufacturer,” he said. “At the bottom of the hierarchy, you find the laborers. They answer to a foreman who reports to a manager, and so on until you get to the president. If you want multiple laborers to do a complicated job, you start with the president, who will pass the instructions down.” 

“There is a master switch that turns on the engine. The engine activates other switches that make all the little cogs and gears in the machine do what they are supposed to do.”

So who uses such terms and illustrations ??? Someone who labels and recognizes the entire genome as he puts it, "a genetic engine." Someone who wish is to appeal to the average person and wishes to help them increase their personal knowledge of the natural world. Many of the gene switches and other nano-mechanisms they are looking into with their research and attempting to identify, they hope to manipulate and bypass the why and how nature works in the wild and create shortcuts mainly for profit. Okay, I get that. But still there is literally volumes invaluable information here which can actually help the home gardener, professional landscaper or habitat restorationist to grasp and get a healthy headstart on any project.

Hunter Industries

nativerevegetation.org

A newer interesting field in genetics is something called epigenetics or geneomic imprinting in which earlier researchers stumbled upon DNA as being more complex than ever religiously thought. Genes apparently have innumerable switches which can be turned on and off much like a light switch and these are what many are trying to identify and and manipulate, patent and turn into a new product for profit. For most of us here now, just knowing that they have discovered info on a plant's ability to sniff out water should tell us something about plant establishment and maintenance thereafter in the landscape, garden or habitat rehabilitation. As I've attempted over time to pound through  everyone's skull the idea or concept of deep pipe irrigation. You have seen both the pics I'm referencing here, the one from Hunter Industries and the other which shows a home made device. Either will work. Plants need to be trained from youth to develop deeper roots where future subsoil water is going to allow them to mature, maintain  and make a living the rest of their natural lives in your landscape. Most conventional practices have been ingrained into the average person by garden shows or advertising to water regularly and fertilize at time of planting and you should know that there are huge business reasons for them to market their products that way to you. Obviously as we've seen in both research studies above, there are clearly both scientific & natural reasons for not doing so. Fertilizing at time of planting is also another waste of time and as you've read above, does not encourage, promote nor facilitate root growth and development. However mycorrhizal inoculation at time of planting is a must and if some expert insists it's already there or everywhere somewhere in the air, run the other way. From my experience and recent trip, if things above ground are failing in Nature, it's a sure bet things aren't doing well under the soil. More on that later on a mycorrhizal article I'm writing and almost finished with.

Earth's Internet: "Deep Irrigation Methods for Training Deeper Rooting networks" 

I've also got another post in which I'll deal with the reasons for not utilizing the conventional methods of watering not only your native plants, but also the conventional exotic plant stocks you've purchased from the conventional retail plant Nurseries. The problems are identical and also for the same health reasons. This topic was earlier posted in many places around the Net and discussed sometime back after the California Native Plant Society posted a link which warned folks about the dangers of summer watering natives, but as many complained, it was rather vague. It had good points, but yes it was vague about the technicalities of what goes on with the plants and why they die. (Article Here) Personally, having worked with both natives and exotics in SoCal for decades, for me the reasons are identical. Stay Tuned.

"We never know the worth of water till the well is dry" 

Thomas Fuller, Gnomologia, 1732