Opinion: Slow water movement to counter drought and floods
For approximately a hundred years, our civilization has developed approaches to speed water away. Increasingly frequent and severe floods and droughts lead to higher levees, bigger drains, and longer aqueducts. We are beginning to learn, however, that increasing concrete infrastructure to control water is exacerbating the problem. Erica Gies’s new book, Water Always Wins, focuses on the slow movement of water, essentially nature’s way, to absorb floods, store water for droughts, and feed natural systems. California is adopting policies and laws to slow water movement in two ways in order to recharge our underground basins. The first approach directs swollen rivers during periods of heavy precipitation into orchards and fields with permeable soils to slowly seep into aquifers.
-Written by Dennis Allen, chair of Allen Construction, an employee-owned company committed to building and operating sustainably.