I'll bet they look like this:
Posted on 07/30/2005 10:10:12 AM PDT by sionnsar
Planting trees can create deserts, lower water tables and drain rivers, rather than filling them, claims a new report supported by the UK government.
The findings - which may come as heresy to tree-lovers and most environmentalists - is an emerging new consensus among forest and water professionals.
“Common but misguided views about water management,” says the report, are resulting in the waste of tens of millions of pounds every year across the world. Forests planted with the intention of trapping moisture are instead depleting reservoirs and drying out soils.
The report summarises studies commissioned over the past four years by the Forestry Research Programme, funded by the UK government’s Department for International Development.
It agrees that, in some places, the environmental nostrum works: trees trap moisture from the air and bind soils that prevent floods, store water and nourish the environment. But it says that in other places, trees suck up moisture from the soil, evaporate water from their leaves, lower water tables, empty rivers and create deserts.
This matters especially when trees are planted specifically to protect water supplies, says chief author John Palmer of the Natural Resources Institute at the University of Greenwich, London, UK. Often, he says, “projects intended to improve water conditions in developing countries may be wasting massive amounts of money”.
Panama is currently seeking hundreds of millions of dollars from the World Bank to plant trees to increase water flow into the reservoirs that feed the Panama Canal. There is, Palmer says, no scientific justification for this plan.
But not everyone agrees. Robert Stallard, a hydrologist at the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute in Panama backs reforesting the canal’s watershed. He says forested watersheds may deliver less water, but they deliver it in a steadier flow.
Forests are not always bad, the authors concede. “We’re not saying they never produce water benefits or that they don’t have an important role in the ecosystem,” says Ian Calder from the University of Newcastle. “But if we are trying to manage water resources effectively, the simple view that more trees are always better is bad policy.”
The studies found that in the Indian states of Himachal Pradesh and Madhya Pradesh, when fields were converted to forests to provide more water for reservoirs, they actually reduced water yields from the land, by 16% and 26% respectively.
In South Africa, the spread of foreign pine and eucalyptus trees across the country has cut river flow by an estimated 3%. The country is currently employing some 40,000 people to uproot many foreign trees. And it taxes plantation owners for their hydrological damage.
High in the mountains of Costa Rica, researchers found that forests do not harvest moisture from the clouds, as previously supposed. Chopping them down in many places barely alters rainfall, according to Sampurno Bruijnzeel from the Free University of Amsterdam, who contributed to the project.
What was the old joke about the master lumberjack who got his start in the Sahara Forest?
""The findings - which may come as heresy to tree-lovers and most environmentalists - is an emerging new consensus among forest and water professionals""
What exactly is a water professional?
Also they just discovered that trailer parks cause tornados
BTTT
bump
hysterical
Get one of them in your town and next thing you know, the trailer parks are gone, and the tornados are bigger than ever.
Quick! Someone tell the tree huggers! I can't wait to see the looks on their faces! :o)
I'll bet they look like this:
A hydrologist: a scientist who studies the distribution, circulation, and physical properties of underground and surface waters as well as the form and intensity of precipitation, its rate of infiltration into the soil, its movement through the earth, and its return to the ocean and atmosphere.
So the Road to Hell might be shady?
Funny, but not likely. I don't have the expertise to really have an opinion about this new study, but I know tree huggers aren't convinced by any amount of science. Their environmentalism is just neo-druidism. Just look at their irrational aversion to GM foods.
There ARE treels along the Champs Elysees...
No, they just attract and trap them. The smartest thing to do is plant trailer parks on the outskirts as tornado traps, to protect the town.
If done properly, the debris from the trailer park will choke the tornado, and either kill it or drastically diminish its strength....
Hundreds of millions of dollars from the world bank to plant trees? One would think that the tree huggers would volunteer to do it for free. When I was a kid the school would give out a free young tree to plant for Arbor day.
Is this another one of those "our winter's are so cold due to global warming" theories?
Eco-ping!
This news doesn't come as a big surprise. There aren't many ecological tennets that can be applied at all places, under all conditions- especially watersheds!
ooops forgot the list!
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