Climate Water Project
By: Alpha Lo
Language: en-US
Categories: Science
How we can restore our water cycles. A look at rain, groundwater, the small water cycle, how we can hydrate our landscapes.
Episodes
The big groundwater crisis - food, water, pollution, and social unrest : John Cherry
Nov 14, 2025John Cherry won the Stockholm Water Prize, known as the ‘Nobel’ of water, which is awarded in conjunction with the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences, the same institution behind the Nobel Prize itself. He wrote the seminal Groundwater textbook that shaped our modern understanding of groundwater hydrology. He pioneered the field of groundwater contamination.
Duration: 01:50:23The planetary boundaries of green water : Lan Wang-Erlandsson
Oct 12, 2025Lan Wang-Erlandsson is a researcher studying moisture recycling aka small water cycle. She focuses on the large-scale interactions between land, water, and climate, and their implications for social-ecological and Earth system resilience. She has conducted work on the planetary boundaries of green water, helped society understand moisture recycling as an ecosystem service, and collaborated with the FAO (Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations) on reports examining how moisture recycling intersects with the future of agriculture.
For more info https://climatewaterproject.substack.com/p/planetary-tipping-points-of-green
Duration: 00:51:32The Forest-Water Connection : ecologist Douglas Sheil
Aug 24, 2025Douglas Sheil is an ecologist at Wageningen University in the Netherlands. He has worked on questions of how forests affect watersheds, how to restore and conserve forests, and also helped clarify explanations of the Biotic Pump. For more info https://climatewaterproject.substack.com/p/the-forest-water-connection-ecologist. You can help support this podcast by becoming a subscriber of the Climate Water Project newsletter.
Duration: 00:58:04Making the map of the small water cycle : Ruud van der Ent
Aug 02, 2025Dr. van der Ent is a hydrologist who made a global map of the small water cycle, showing what percentage of the evapotranspiration turns back into rainfall on the same continent. For written article https://climatewaterproject.substack.com/p/making-the-map-of-the-small-water
Duration: 01:14:32'Our Blue World' documentary : Paul O'Callaghan
Jun 19, 2025A wonderful new documentary, Our Blue World, is out, and it offers a panoramic exploration of how communities across the globe are learning to live in greater harmony with water. The film highlights a wide range of innovative and traditional practices—from China’s sponge city initiative, to New Zealand’s recognition of the Whanganui River as a legal person, to the ancient Peruvian techniques for guiding water into mountains so it reemerges as springs. It also delves into the Biosphere 2 project, where twelve people lived in a sealed dome for two years and had to rely on constructed wetlan...
Duration: 01:08:14Putting rocks into rivers to lessen drought-fire-flood : Laura Norman, physical scientist
May 13, 2025Laura Norman is a physical scientist with the USGS. Doing hydrological modelling of slow water. https://climatewaterproject.substack.com/p/putting-rocks-in-rivers-to-lessen
Duration: 01:00:07Natural Sequence Farming : Stuart Andrews
Apr 12, 2025The five principles of Natural Sequence Farming (NSF) are:
1) Slow the Flow: Emphasizing the importance of slowing down water flow to allow infiltration into the soil.
2) Let All Plants Grow: Promoting plant diversity and allowing natural regeneration of the landscape.
3) Careful Where the Animals Go: Integrating livestock management with the natural sequence of the landscape.
4) Filtration is a Must Know: Understanding the role of natural filtration systems in purifying water.
5) Return to the Top to Recycle the Lot: Recycling nutrients and resources by returning waste products to the top...
Duration: 01:31:08The Art of Water : Charlotte Qin
Mar 30, 2025Charlotte Qin in an artist of water. She paints the fluid flow of water in its different forms, and she does reciprocal performances about water, where she interacts with the audience, as they connect with the water. For more info https://climatewaterproject.substack.com/p/the-art-of-water-charlotte-qin . You can support this work by becoming a paid subscriber of the Climate Water Project newsletter.
Duration: 01:34:58Plants drink water from the air: hydrologist Sieger Burger interview
Feb 28, 2025In this interview, we talk about a wide range of topics in hydrology, including how plants drink water from the air in a process called foliar water uptake. Article is at https://climatewaterproject.substack.com/p/plants-drink-water-from-the-air-hydrologist
Duration: 01:23:58The Water Solution - A plan to lessen LA & California fires : with Didi Pershouse
Jan 21, 2025Rehydrating Los Angeles and its surrounding areas can help lessen fires. For more see climatewaterproject.substack.com
Duration: 01:34:41How can we restore bioregions? Willem Ferwerda
Jan 10, 2025A participatory approach to restore bioregions. Commonland is an organization that helps facilitate multistakeholders to come together to look at how to restore the land, ecosystem, and water. It works to bring farmers, businesses, NGOs, local government, and academics together in a collaborative approach. They work to restore 100000 +hectares in a bioregion. An interview of the Climate Water Project
Commonland (2024) The 4 Returns Framework in Practice: A guidebook for holistic landscape restoration https://4returns.commonland.com/lesson/introduction/ El marco de los 4 retornos en la práctica: Guía para la restauración holística del paisaje" https://4retu...
Duration: 01:57:58Absorbing rains to bring landscapes back to life : Neal Spackman
Nov 05, 2024Neal Spackman discusses his project that restored desert lands in Saudi Arabia, his work with the Great Green Wall of Africa, and eco and water restoration ideas for Spain. https://climatewaterproject.substack.com/p/absorbing-rains-to-bring-landscapes
Duration: 01:27:39Regenerating a farm and a semi-arid region : Silvia Quarta
Oct 21, 2024La Junquera is a farm on a windswept plateau in southeastern Spain. www.lajunquera.com/ . Its part of a collective of farms and businesses called Alvelal that is working to regenerate the region. https://alvelal.es/. For more info and transcript https://climatewaterproject.substack.com/p/regenerating-a-farm-and-a-semi-arid
Duration: 00:54:26Regenerative tourism and regenerative water: Anna Pollock
Oct 14, 2024Anna Pollock has played a significant role in launching the regenerative tourism movement. For more info see https://climatewaterproject.substack.com/p/how-eco-tourism-can-help-the-regenerative and http://www.conscious.travel/
Duration: 01:18:59The Joy of Restoring Water Cycles : Nick Steiner
Jun 27, 2024Nick Steiner is a water management consultant at PermaNick , and works at Water Stories, which trains people in the ways of water management. For the essay on this podcast see Climate Water Project
Duration: 01:19:24Investing in water and regenerative agriculture : Koen van Seijen
May 07, 2024Koen van Seijen is the host of the "Investing in regenerative agriculture and food" podcast, and also manager at Toniic, an impact investment organization. We discuss various ways of funding the regenerative agriculture as well as the regenerative water movement. for interview also see the Climate Water Project Newsletter . The "Investing in regenerative agriculture and food" podcast page is here . You can support this podcast by subscribing to the Climate Water Project newsletter, or on Patreon
Duration: 01:36:01Investing
May 04, 2024Koen
Duration: 00:00:10Beaverland - Leila Philip
Apr 19, 2024Beavers a keystone species. Bringing them back can help us restore wetlands, rivers, biodiversity, and climate. For article https://climatewaterproject.substack.com/p/beaverland-interview-with-author . Leila Philip's website https://www.leilaphilip.com/
Duration: 01:16:24Maladaptations in the time of water crisis : Robert Miller
Apr 12, 2024Stephen Robert Miller is the author of "Over the Seawall", where he looks at the unintended consequences of our water infrastructures, and when they backfire. His book describes humans attempts to control water scarcity, droughts, floods, and tsunamis, and how these attempts can worsen the situation. His website is stephenrobertmiller.com . You can read the article on this work at the Climate Water Project at https://climatewaterproject.substack.com/p/maladaptations-in-the-time-of-water
Duration: 01:06:37Slowing our waters : Erica Gies
Jan 21, 2024An interview with Erica Gies, author of "Water Always Wins" and writer for New York Times, National Geographic, Scientific American and Nature. She discusses how our current 'grey infrastructure' solutions to floods and droughts, may cause more problems than they solve. Instead she proposes 'green infrastructure', nature-based solutions. She discusses the importance of not destroying the natural ability of the landscape to hold moisture, in order not to increase possibility of wildfires.
For more info and newsletter climatewaterproject.substack.com
Duration: 01:26:06Bread and Museums : A dialog with Didi Pershouse
Nov 14, 2023From restoring peoples health to restoring the earth health, Didi Pershouse, brings her sweetness and wisdom to help heal humans and Gaia. She is the author of “Understanding soil health and watershed function”, and teaches ecological knowledge through her Land and Leadership Initiative. In conjunction with Walter Jehne, she has facilitated numerous water projects around the world.
Didi Pershouse is landandleadership.org
The Climate Water Project is at climatewaterproject.substack.com This is a newsletter you can subscribe to.
Instagram.com/climatewaterproject
Duration: 01:14:36Halting our drought-fire-flood path to desertification: Zach Weiss
Sep 04, 2023Zach Weiss is a land and water manager that helps restore the water cycle on our land. He also teaches a course to train people in water restoration. For the essay interview see here. For a link to his water course see here
Newsletter: climatewaterproject.substack.com
Duration: 01:07:15India's Regenerative Water Movement : Andrew Millison
Jul 17, 2023Andrew Millison is one of the world's most known permaculture teachers. He travelled to India to document what he calls the worlds largest permaculture project, where 8000 villagers participated to build earthworks and reforest the land, which restored the water cycle to help the crops grow, and also brought back the rain. For accompanying article to this podcast https://climatewaterproject.substack.com/p/indias-regenerative-water-movement
Time stamps for podcast:
1:10 Learning about water Arizona. Curb cut idea of Brad Lancaster
6:15 Teaching permaculture and water at Oregon State University. The launch of his videos.
16:50 India...
Duration: 01:02:38How to turn deserts into grasslands : Rodger Savory
Jun 30, 2023Rodger Savory is an ecologist, land manager, and ranch owner who worked in his Holistic Management, the ecorestoration movement his dad Alan Savory started.
He set himself the goal of figuring out how to turn deserts into grasslands.
His website is www.fixdeserts.com
The article that goes with this podcast is at https://climatewaterproject.substack.com/p/cows-chickens-microbes-and-fungi
Duration: 01:02:27Animals are helping our water cycle : Judith Schwartz
Jun 12, 2023Judith Schwartz, author of "Water in Plain Sight" joins us to discuss how animals affect the water cycle.
Her website is judithschwartz.com
Our website is climatewaterproject.substack.com
and instagram.com/climatewaterproject
Duration: 00:45:56Beavers, biology, and slow water : Brock Dolman
Jun 08, 2023Brock Dolman is a conservation biologist and permaculture teacher who coined the phrase "Slow it, sink it, spread it" and helped co-found the Occidental Arts and Ecology Center and the Water Institute https://oaec.org/our-work/projects-and-partnerships/water-institute/
His organizations work helped bring back the beaver in California, and has helped communties restore the water cycle in their neighborhoods. The template for neighborhood watershed restoration is here https://oaec.org/publications/basins-relations-citizens-guide-2018/
You can read his interview here https://climatewaterproject.substack.com/p/beavers-biology-and-slow-water-brock#details
You can subscribe to the Climate Water Project...
Duration: 01:14:03The Water Tale : a rap song
Mar 31, 2023Teisho and Alpha rap about the water cycle.
For more info : https:climatewaterproject.substack.com
www.instagram.com/climatewaterproject
If you would like to support this project https://www.patreon.com/watercology
Duration: 00:04:19Charles Eisenstein: Water and the Living Earth
Mar 17, 2023Charles Eisenstein is the author of "Climate", "Ascent of humanity", "The more beautiful world that we know". He discusses the importance of water to our ecosystems and the climate, and how we can heal our relationship to the environment.
You can see the article at the Climate Water Project newsletter https://climatewaterproject.substack.com/p/charles-eisenstein-water-and-the#details
You can support this work at www.patreon.com/watercology
Instagram: www.instagram.com/climatewaterproject
Duration: 00:57:54Biotic pump -how forests create rain :Anastasia Makarieva
Dec 03, 2022Forests evapotranspire water vapor. When that vapor condenses to form clouds it creates a lessening of pressure which can then attract more moisture from the ocean. Anastasia Makarieva and Victor Gorshov discovered this effect called the Biotic Pump
Duration: 01:37:50Regreening the Sinai : Ties van der Hoeven
Nov 30, 2022An ambitious project to regreen the Sinai desert in Egypt is underway. It involves 1) restoring Lake Bardawil at the northern tip of the Sinai 2) turning the sediment from the lake into soil which is then used to jump start the regreening process in the desert. Creating temporary ecosystems in geodesic domes that catalyse the ecosuccession process 3) a shift in the rain and wind patterns that result from the regreening
Duration: 01:18:02Communities can protect themselves against floods and droughts : Minni Jain
Oct 26, 2022Minni Jain is the founder of the Flow Partnership, an organization that has helped thousands of communities in India and Britain protect themselves against floods and droughts, by the use of simple watercatchment structures that can slow, sink, and spread the rainfall as it comes down.
Duration: 01:17:20How to replenish our groundwater : Helen Dahlke
Oct 26, 2022Professor Helen Dahlke, of the University of California of Davis, has been leading the (re)charge to replenish California’s groundwaters. She has teamed up with farmers, to guide the excess water from the winter rains to flood farms, thus creating temporary wetlands. Over days and weeks, that water then sinks down to replenish the aquifers.
In this podcast Helen Dahlke shares about her research, the groundwater situation in California, the quest to replenish its aquifers, the droughts and intermittent large rains, the wetlands and floods, and the interdiscplinary efforts to bring back nature-based solutions to our wa...
Duration: 01:08:14How forests increase rain : Francina Dominguez
Oct 26, 2022Francina Dominguez, a hydroclimatologist at the University of Illinois has been figuring out where our rain comes from. She has been tracking water as it moves across our continents. The process of moisture hopping, or moisture recycling (also known as the small water cycle in other circles), is the movement of water from air to land to air to land and so on - rain falls to the land, and then evapotranspires back up to form rain again.
She studied the droughts in the US Midwest in 2012, and found that the droughts there were related to the...
Duration: 01:03:52Stories of our Watersheds: Elizabeth Dougherty
Oct 26, 2022In this podcast I interview Dr. Elizabeth Dougherty, executive director of WhollyH20. She was instrumental in helping get California to pass its greywater laws. She did this by bring different demographics together - the hippies who knew about what to do with water, with the Stanford engineers who were happy to learn about these methods, and the government officials who could implement the new water laws that allowed these new ways of working with water. She talks about getting Brock Dolman, now a water legend who runs the Water Institute at the Occidental Arts and Ecology Center, who back...
Duration: 01:05:54Pee, Poo, Wastewater: Nik Bertulis
Oct 26, 2022Nik Bertulis is a permaculture water educator, a designer of integrated water systems, implementing greywater, rainwater, stormwater and wetland systems. He cofounded Dig.coop a water conservation systems cooperative. He has designed many innovative water solutions for our environment.
We talk about the importance of closing the nutrient cycles in our environment. What our society considers waste, our pee, our poo, our sewage, can be useful nutrients for the vegetation and soil. The distribution of pee and poo of animals moving around support the functioning of our ecosystems. Nik discusses how we can clean our sewage with...
Duration: 01:02:32Natural Sequence Farming; Climate&Water : David Maher
Oct 26, 2022David Maher is an experienced land management practitioner who has helped restore natural water processes on many lands. He worked with Peter Andrews who founded the Natural Sequence Farming modality. He expounds here on how our land and water management affects the climate.
Duration: 01:50:37Green and Grey Infrastructure: Angelina Cook
Oct 14, 2022How we can used nature based solutions, rather than man made infrastructures for our water.
Duration: 00:19:26