Trees Bring Rain #3

By Atom Bergstrom

Atom’s Blog

According to Peter Wohlleben (Daily Mail, Sept. 15, 2016) …

“During a heavy storm, a mature deciduous tee can ‘drink’ a couple of hundred gallons of water, which is funnelled to its roots. This water is stored in the surrounding soil, to help the tree through future dry spells. Trees think ahead.”

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And trees SHARE their water with the other denizens of the forest … including human beings.

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I’m accessing our Sun Sync Nutrition website files as a PUBLIC SERVICE.

The following Sun Sync blog entry is from May 8, 2015.

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A surplus of trees is soaking up a lot of California’s water supply, according to University of Southern California hydrologists.

How exactly do these hydrologists explain the following newspaper article?

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Veronica Rocha & Hailey Branson-Potts (“Drought kills 12 million trees in California’s national forest,” Los Angeles Times, May 5, 2015) wrote …

“A new study by the U.S. forest service tried to assess the scope of the problem. Researchers estimated that the drought has killed off at least 12.5 million trees in California’s national forests during the drought.

“The scientists expect the die-off to continue. ‘It is almost certain that millions more trees will die over the course of the upcoming summer as the drought situation continues and becomes ever more long term,’ said biologist Jeffrey Moore, acting regional aerial survey program manager for the U.S. Forest Service.”

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According to “Forests and Rivers,” Bulletin of the Department of Agriculture, Aug. 1906 …

“Several very striking examples are given by the authors of the papers as to the deleterious effects of cutting down forests, especially in hilly districts. In the commune of La Bruguiere, the forests on the slopes of the Black Mountain were cut down; the consequence of this removal of the trees was that a brook which ran at the foot, and the water from which was used for driving some fulling mills, became so dried up in summer as no longer to be of any use, while in winter the sudden floods caused very great damage in the valley. The forests were re-planted, and as the trees grew up the water coming to the brook was so regulated as to serve its former useful purpose in driving the mills, and the torrents in winter were moderated. Several other examples of a similar character are given.

“In Switzerland, amongst other examples is quoted one that occurred in the canton of Berne, where, owing to the re-planting of the mountain-side with fir trees, the water again appeared at a spring which had ceased to flow. After a period the trees were cut down and the land converted into pasturage, since when the spring has almost disappeared only opening out at occasional intervals.

“In the Kazan district of Russia, once celebrated for its forests of oaks and linden, which are now nearly all cut down, there were formerly seventy water-mills constantly at work. Less than half now can be worked, and even they only run half time, and are idle in summer for want of water; while in winter the little rivers that worked these mills are converted into impetuous torrents, breaking up the mill dams and doing other damage. These abandoned water-mills stand out as a striking proof of the consequences of the destruction of forests.

“In Sardinia, where the surface consists of plutonic rocks covered with a thin layer of earth, all the streams have a rapid slope. The woods, which occupied in 1870 an area of more than 2 ½ million acres, or about 43 per cent of the whole surface of the island, now are reduced to about one-sixteenth of this area. Since the removal of the trees the floods in the rivers rise with a rapidity and flow with a velocity never known before, and a great number of bridges have been destroyed by the floods. The beds of the channels have been raised in some places above the surface of the land, owing to the detritus brought down in floods.

“In Wisconsin, U.S.A., the settlers cut down the forests and converted the land into tillage and pasture. During a period of about seventy years nearly the whole of the forest land was thus cleared with the result that, as the forest disappeared, the water in the river became lower; finally thirty miles of the channel entirely dried up, and many water-mills that were formerly worked by the stream are now deserted and useless, owing to the want of water to run them.

“In Sicily, owing to the cutting down of the forests on a vast scale in the province of Messina, the bed of the river has been raised by the stones and earth carried down by the torrents so as to stop all drainage from the land, and great damage has been done by the floods. Several other examples are given to the same effect where forests have been cleared in the same district, and these are compared with other streams where the forests still exists [sic] and their condition remains unaltered. In the former case, landslides from the mountains have become more frequent.”

(To Be Continued)
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