08/27/2026
California’s long-term water crisis is not merely dependent on how much or how little water we receive or import, store in reservoirs, and distribute via concrete or plastic infrastructure. A major part of our water crisis is our landscape’s ability to receive and retain water; water infiltration hydrates the broader landscape, recharges our groundwater, and creates climate and fire resilience.
Higher soil moisture levels also increase local evaporative cooling and moisture recycling. Increasing the land’s ability to slow, hold, and store higher volumes of water in the dry season has shown remarkable cascading outcomes, even in arid, degraded, and dehydrated regions. ‘Green Water’ – water driven by and moved through soil, plants, and micro-organisms – is a crucial, disrupted link in our landscape’s climate. The small water cycle is a vital ecohydrological process that has the power to reverse a dehydrating landscape and the death spiral of drought – fire – flood.
The co-regulatory relationship between soil health and microbiome, vegetation, and atmospheric processes such as rainfall, wind, and temperature, is under-considered in land-use policy and understudied in academia. It's common to blame the generic ‘climate change’ for extreme storms, floods, droughts, and fires. But the increase in frequency and severity of extreme storm events, floods, and droughts can be partially attributed to the drastic changes to ecosystems and their small water cycles, particularly the disruption of evapotranspiration and hydrological feedback loops, soil moisture and groundwater recharge, soil biology, water-holding capacity, bio-precipitation, and more.
While we wait for global economies to de-carbonize...we are committed to addressing watershed disruptions at a regional level. We're inspired by indigenous elders such as Rajendra Singh in Rajasthan, Yacouba Sawadogo in the Upper Volta, and elder leaders in the southwest US, who are reviving ancient practices and rehydrating landscapes with seemingly miraculous results. We're optimistic about the regional impact of their action-oriented approach, centered on watershed health and function.
