Healthy water-cycles are the most cost-effective means of mitigating the effects of flooding.

 

              
(Photos courtesy of ABC)

This discourse was prompted by recent flooding in the Gascoyne, Rockhampton and Brisbane regions. (These were by no means the only regions affected by flooding early 2011.) Watching the news brought home to me how vulnerable our own local Kimberley communities have become over recent decades.
In 1999 the Kimberley Echo published an open letter to the people of Kununurra and to the heads of local departments. It was an attempt to draw attention to the danger that deteriorating water-sheds in the region posed to commercial pursuits. Particular emphasis was given to the threat that ongoing deterioration of the Dunham River catchment posed to the community of Kununurra and to local businesses. In March2000 we had a situation where we were probably closer than a 250mm rainfall-event away from a scenario that I had outlined, and a few people took note. However a decade has gone by and the deterioration of the Dunham catchment continues. Could we even handle another season like 1999/2000 without major infrastructural damage and fallout at local business levels? I would not bet on it.
The classic poem below by John O’Brien puts droughts, floods and fires all on the same page. From a perspective of eco-system function the three are of course closely related, but this fact is often missed and our responses tend to be reactive and problem-focused.
Too often we explain such events as individual ‘Acts of God’ without understanding the human factors that set the stage for such disasters:  Historic as well as current human induced impacts on the Water-Cycle would have to be at the top of the list...

 

SAID HANRAHAN by John O'Brien

"We'll all be rooned," said Hanrahan,

In accents most forlorn,

Outside the church, ere Mass began,

One frosty Sunday morn.

The congregation stood about,

Coat-collars to the ears,

And talked of stock, and crops, and drought,

As it had done for years.

"It's looking crook," said Daniel Croke;

"Bedad, it's cruke, me lad,

For never since the banks went broke

Has seasons been so bad."

(Photo by I. Waldie, Getty Images)
  

"It's dry, all right," said young O'Neil,

With which astute remark

He squatted down upon his heel

And chewed a piece of bark.

And so around the chorus ran

"It's keepin' dry, no doubt."

"We'll all be rooned," said Hanrahan,

"Before the year is out."

"The crops are done; ye'll have your work

To save one bag of grain;

From here way out to Back-o'-Bourke

They're singin' out for rain.

"They're singin' out for rain," he said,

"And all the tanks are dry."

The congregation scratched its head,

And gazed around the sky.

"There won't be grass, in any case,

Enough to feed an ass;

There's not a blade on Casey's place

As I came down to Mass."

(Photo from WA Dept of Agriculture)

"If rain don't come this month," said Dan,

And cleared his throat to speak -

"We'll all be rooned," said Hanrahan,

"If rain don't come this week."

A heavy silence seemed to steal

On all at this remark;

And each man squatted on his heel,

And chewed a piece of bark.

"We want an inch of rain, we do,"

O'Neil observed at last;

But Croke "maintained" we wanted two

To put the danger past.

"If we don't get three inches, man,

Or four to break this drought,

We'll all be rooned," said Hanrahan,

"Before the year is out."

In God's good time down came the rain;

And all the afternoon

On iron roof and window-pane

It drummed a homely tune.

(Photo: Kachana Pastoral Company)
  

And through the night it pattered still,

And lightsome, gladsome elves

On dripping spout and window-sill

Kept talking to themselves.

(Photo: Kachana Pastoral Company)
  

It pelted, pelted all day long,

A-singing at its work,

Till every heart took up the song

Way out to Back-o'-Bourke.

(Photo: Kachana Pastoral Company)
  

And every creek a banker ran,

And dams filled overtop;

"We'll all be rooned," said Hanrahan,

"If this rain doesn't stop."

And stop it did, in God's good time;

And spring came in to fold

A mantle o'er the hills sublime

Of green and pink and gold.

(Photo: Kachana Pastoral Company)
  

And days went by on dancing feet,

With harvest-hopes immense,

And laughing eyes beheld the wheat

Nid-nodding o'er the fence.

And, oh, the smiles on every face,

As happy lad and lass

Through grass knee-deep on Casey's place

Went riding down to Mass.

While round the church in clothes genteel

Discoursed the men of mark,

And each man squatted on his heel,

And chewed his piece of bark.

(Photo: Y. Henggeler)
  

"There'll be bush-fires for sure, me man,

There will, without a doubt;

We'll all be rooned," said Hanrahan,

"Before the year is out."

(Photo: Adventure Out)
  

Older Australians probably relate more readily to the poem above. Today most of us enjoy life-styles that are no longer tied into nature’s daily, monthly and seasonal rhythms, so it is easy for us to ignore issues like ‘water-cycle’ or ‘eco-system function’. ‘Business as usual’ is the order of the day and if we cannot purchase what we need from local suppliers, we can have it sent to us from further afield. There are times when this ignorance of what happens in the landscapes around us costs communities and individuals dearly.  Floods and wild-fire come to mind as neither respect municipal boundaries.
Modern Australia’s history is not only of drought, flood and fire. These three however do make better headlines than issues like the sound custodianship of land. If a child drowns the whole nation gets to hear about it, but who wants to know about parents who teach their children to swim?
 Despite our inherited ecological challenges there are growing numbers of land-managers spread across Australia that are putting their intimate knowledge of the land to good use for the benefit of all. Modern cutting-edge soil-science is assisting the process, but we have a long way to go. There is much we still have to learn and then somehow we must be able to get this new knowledge across to the broader community if we wish to be effective.
While we empathise with people who in all innocence go about their daily duties year after year only to watch everything they worked for to be washed away by a flood or incinerated in a wild-fire, we also ask: How can we avoid this sort of thing happening again? While how much rain drops out of the sky is well beyond our circle of influence, there is much we could do in upstream catchment areas to capture more water and to slow down run-off.
These issues are not restricted to scientists, politicians and government authorities. Floods can impact every single person in a community.  For all of us to gain a deeper understanding we need to be able to step back and see ourselves as well as our community within a bigger picture.

Good intentions and legislation cannot overrule the laws of nature
Just as a town planner will work within given guidelines, so does Planet Earth have laws that govern what living things can do and what they cannot do. These laws were in place and functioning long before departmental planning was even conceived. Although some of these laws also apply on other planets, there are those that are unique to ‘eco-system function’ on planet Earth. For any individual or community of species to survive they need to live within the framework of laws that make life possible on this planet.  
As a pedestrian or as a motorist travelling along a road, if you are not aware of the ‘rules of the road’ you will at some point in time endanger your life and that of others.
Individual citizens or politicians and planners, the same applies for us if we mess with the eco-system without understanding what it is all about.
Eco-system is about energy.  -  Vast amounts of energy.
How much energy is in an oncoming road-train? Does it really matter once it is about to hit you? Does it really matter if you are standing safely to the side of the road? For most of us it is enough to know that it is a powerful vehicle and that we need to keep a safe distance away.
How much energy gets beamed onto Planet Earth?  I do not know; does it really matter? For most of us it is enough to know that Sun’s energy is what keeps all life on earth going, and (like with an electric socket) if we mess with it we might not like the consequences. We find the sun’s energy in the food we eat and in the water we drink. The air we breathe is a by-product of plants absorbing solar energy. We find the sun’s energy in the fuel that runs our cars and in the coal that supplies our electricity. The sun drives our weather patterns and more. We are talking about a lot of energy; much, much more than what makes us perspire on a sunny day.  This energy is the fuel for our eco-system. It makes our ‘eco-system’ function (verb).  -  It really does matter if we influence how that energy is channelled.
‘Eco-system function’ (noun) is the name we give to a complex web of physical, chemical and biological processes that makes life on earth possible. We find a range of specialists in nearly every scientific discipline but we lack people on the ground with a track-record of sound eco-system management. (The successful race-horse trainer does not require all the knowledge of the track-vet or the skills of the jockey; he commands a combination of perception, skill, and experience. He builds his own knowledge-base. This is what we need in eco-system management- not only around commercial production areas and community hubs, but also upstream in our remote rangelands and water-catchment areas.)  

Modern economies have a tendency not to factor in what nature supplies. With regard to the personal economy of our own bodies, we do not give much thought to the air we breathe, water flows from taps and as in many modern societies most of us Australians find the energy we need to live on almost ready to eat, sitting on the super-market shelf. For many people personal health only becomes an issue when something goes wrong or when age lets us know about it.
At the national level our economy takes for granted a subsidy of solar energy stored in fossils; we tap into this at the fuel -bowser or at an electric socket.   With the use of technology we can store water in dams or pump it from places where other animals cannot reach it.
While things work out to our advantage it is easy to forget the lessons of history: we would not be the first human economy to fail because progress/growth cannot be sustained indefinitely.  A child stops growing once she is an adult. Clubs, schools, communities and populations grow and decline. Time scales may vary, but nature’s endless cycle of life can be slowed down or sped up, but it is not easily disrupted:
birth – growth – reproduction – death – decay – birth – growth – reproduction – death – decay – birth...
We cannot stop our eco-system and take it apart to study it. Anyhow in such complex situations that include life and living things, we tend to learn more by observation than we do by manipulation. So let us just take a peek at some features that we have learned something about. (I like scientist Allan Savory’s approach that highlights four fundamental processes; it makes so much un-common good sense. He lets nature do the talking...  This allows each of us to obtain and act on first-hand information.)
Imagine stepping into a landscape setting upstream of where we live. We ask four Questions (some analogies may help):

1. Energy-Flow: How much fuel is reaching the tank, and then the motor?  

In other words how much of the daily available sunshine is captured by plants (through photosynthesis) and is thus fed into the living eco-system for the benefit of all?
(What is happening to “eco-system food”?)
[Green vegetation is a good indicator.]

2. Water-Cycle: Are all moving parts of the vehicle being adequately lubricated?  

In ecological terms: How much of the rain that fell in the last 12 months is still onsite in the form of moisture in the soil, or being recycled in the form of dew and by animals (dung and urine) and thus available to plants, micro-organisms and other large animals? How much of it ran off down-stream; how much evaporated?  
(Or if we relate it to our own health: What is happening to the “eco-system beverages”?)
[Again, green rather than dry vegetation is a good indicator.]

3. Mineral-Cycle: Are the motor and the vehicle holding together as designed, or are we losing parts while others are accumulating rust?

Are nutrients cycling and recycling through biological processes or are they being washed/blown away, dehydrating or just staying on site and not doing much?
(How well is the “eco-system digestive system” functioning?)
[As indicators we look for insect and microbial activity; the presence of grazers, browsers and predators; the biological break-down of dung and plant litter; healthy plant-growth.]  

4. Biodiversity or Community-Dynamics: Is the performance of the vehicle up to standard?

Do we observe the coexistence of healthy populations of plants, animals and soil-organisms? Is there a wide distribution of species? Are air, water and soils being purified and is there enough to eat?
(What do we notice about “eco-system fitness”?)
[Here the type of indicators we look for will depend on what our expectations are: sheep-paddock, wheat-field or national park, etc. The key will be the type of life we find in our soils.]  
(If flooding is our main concern it is easy to place a focus on the water-cycle only... not a good idea... all four processes are interrelated and each situation is unique.)

We are trying to gain an understanding of what is happening, and what trends dominate a landscape that we depend on. This approach does not look for scientifically correct or incorrect proof; we are asking the land to talk to us...
We must constantly try and understand better what it is trying to tell us...
Any responsible parent with a child that throws up or has a runny tummy will soon notice if he is losing weight. She may ask how the child feels and if he is ready for a little walk out-doors.
Does she need to call for medical assistance or will things settle?
Time soon helps provide an answer. Meanwhile we listen to, care for and observe the patient.
(I’m sure many people can relate to such a situation.)

 

     
(Photos: Kachana Pastoral Company)

 

So when a bush-fire exposes bare ground and heat radiates off the area for three months before it rains, and then when it does rain the rivers run dark with charcoal and silt or red with eroding soil, why can we not see that we have an eco-system that is losing fluids and energy?

 

 

     
(Photos: Kachana Pastoral Company)

 

When we see gullies opening up, branching out and widening, why can we not see a landscape that is losing weight?

   
(Photos: Kachana Pastoral Company)

 

When we stand in a 700mm rainfall area located in the tropics and admire a wild and rugged range are we aware that perhaps we might be looking at an anorexic landscape?  A landscape that ‘throws up’ and loses most of the food and drink that it is given each year?

 

           
(It has beauty, but is it ‘fit’? Photos: Adventure Out / Kachana Pastoral Company)

 

We need to ask the four questions above to begin to know what is happening. The answers then prompt us to look deeper and help us ask the right questions.
 In doing so we are able to see a bigger picture.

 

Bare capped or compacted surfaces shed water quickly. Yet vegetation could slow it down.

        
(Photos: Kachana Pastoral Company)

The photo above shows runoff at the top of a rise after a small shower of only 3 mm of rain. What happens down-stream if our country sheds off water instead of capturing and storing it?

  
(Photo: Kachana Pastoral Company)                                                   (Photo: L. Heading)

 

Earlier we mentioned that ecosystem is about energy, well there is plenty of energy in a flood - ask the people of Toowoomba. 

A flood is energy going where we did not expect it to be...
A flood is energy being released in a way that we may find hard to manage...

    
Flying Fox Out-Station  (Photo: KPC)                                Flying Fox Out-Station, March2000
                                                                                                (Photo: L. Heading)

The cruel reality is that once we get more rain than expected, it is too late to even begin to contemplate such questions. Even if we take action today there is no guarantee that we can achieve sufficient effective reversal of catchment-deterioration before the next excessive rainfall-event...

• Not on the 3.11 square kilometre SWEK-“problem-child catchment” of Weber Plain Rd.
• Not in the much larger Dunham River catchment.

 

How much water is in a flood?
On a positive note though, we can begin to do some calculations that would help us address water storage issues. So let us look upstream at the Dunham Valley, immediately south-west of the Packsaddle Plains. Once the Dunham breaks its banks we have an old flood-plain that is on average perhaps three kilometres wide and reasonably level.  (Kingston Rest is about 45 km upstream.)
All it takes to flood that valley to a depth of one meter with a back-log of about 45 kilometres, is for 100mm of rain to fall rapidly in a 135’000 hectare area upstream, and for that water to run off instead of soaking in.
(We are talking about an area a third of the size of our average Kimberley station, or a little more than half the size of the ACT or approximately a third of the Dunham catchment.)
What are the chances that with an average rainfall of over 600mm, that 100mm do not soak in?
In all probability more than 100 will not soak in.
It merely depends on how quickly the rain falls as to whether the water can drain fast enough to reduce flooding.
Once water is running off and no longer being absorbed by soil and aquifers, even as little as 30mm of rain in the whole Dunham Catchment area would release the 135’000 mega-litres that could cause the flood described above.
The average annual discharge of the Dunham is 261’200 Mega litres; this is nearly twice the volume of the flood scenario described above...

So long as the bulk of the catchment continues to deteriorate, the discharge volume of the Dunham River can only increase...  Even in an average year.

                
(Deteriorating upper catchment areas. Photos: Ord Land & Water / Kachana Pastoral Company)

There are only two things that can reduce the impact of downstream flooding:

• quicker drainage 
• better water-infiltration into the soil and aquifers upstream with more vegetation to slow the flow of water

       
(Photos taken in a managed portion of sub-catchment of the Chamberlain River)
Photos: Kachana Pastoral Company)

The Dunham is already working on the first one. It is cutting away its western bank immediately upstream of the bridge and may possibly cut a new channel to the west of its current bed. If the flow under the bridge remains unobstructed and excessive water can run over the highway as it did in 2000, all we need to do is strengthen the highway and hope that the Ord is not in flood at the same time, and the water may drain away fast enough to avoid spillage onto the Packsaddle Plains.
This however simply always remains an expensive band-aid measure associated with hope, unless we address the issue up-stream: a deteriorating water-cycle

 
The Dunham gouging away the West bank                                         Less Vegetation = Increased Run-off      
(Photo: Kachana Pastoral Company)

 

Reservoirs to roof-tops
For decades now we have been tolerating major change to occur in our water-sheds and upper-river rainfall-catchment areas. The region’s topographically diverse ranges used to harbour sponges, wetlands, forests and slopes covered in brush and perennial groundcover. These areas acted as water reservoirs to service extended (if not perennial) stream flow beyond the wet season. In many cases this is no longer so.

                 
(These have become typical sights in much of our sandstone country: more exposed bed-rock on the ridges and eroding pockets of sediment that used to sustain soaks and wetland systems. - Photos KPC)

 

 

Water-Cycle; a closer look
We interrupt this discourse to visit a facet of the ‘water-cycle’ that we tend to ignore: 
In most instances healthy creek-flow is not directly fed by rain, but instead by a rising watertable that fills depressions and later spills into and along drainage lines. (Rain-waterl percolates through the soil profile to raise the watertable.)  -  Similarly to when we drink fluids. They are absorbed in our body and the excess ends up in the bladder and passes out of our body via our urinary system. If fluid goes straight through us something is out of balance; if the trend continues for an extended period of time we risk dehydration (as is the case in Cholera).  Excesses do occur at times and we observe such symptoms due to self-inflicted indulgence, but our “patient” tends to recover after a good sleep.  The same is true in a landscape that is already saturated and the water of a subsequent cloud-burst has nowhere to go but flood. Such floods are often local and the water should not be eroding soil. The same rules apply on a larger scale.

                       
(Bacteria, fungi and algae hold the soil together. Vegetation can help slow down run-off.
 Here the vegetation also acts as a filter for the water. – Photos KPC)

If we see muddied water it tells us we are losing soil and biodiversity. No argument.
(This the 21st century and the science is there whether is fits into our comfort zone or not.)
   
(Even a small 20mm Rainstorm will erode unprotected soil. – Photos KPC)

Bare ground in a tropical setting will just about guarantee a loss of soil due to the intensity of the storms we get quite frequently throughout the wet season. Over time we end up with more and more bed-rock being exposed while rivers sand up and estuarine mud-flats expand.

   
(Upper catchment areas of the Dunham River, December 2003; Photos KPC)

There are times when we require bare ground. If we wish to plant a crop, clear a fire-break, mine for minerals, sand or gravel; then such a loss may be the price we need to pay. The loss of soil cannot be sustained on a regular basis unless we compensate upstream, on site or downstream. Most times such situations although they can be pinned down to actions or inactions of single individuals, are in fact a community issue.  A farmer providing a crop, a grazier supplying beef, miners supplying an export-industry, a forestry company providing jobs and revenue to the community, etc., there are many examples where current practices that affect soil and biodiversity are the result of what the market and the community tolerate, encourage or demand.  If particular practices are commonly accepted and the consequences of these flow on downstream, it is fair to say that these are community issues. This is the case even if upstream factors remain out of sight.

 
(Photo courtesy of ABC)                                                               (Photo: L. Heading)

 

Rooftops to reservoirs

   
More and more bare rock appearing in areas that used to be covered in sandy soil and Spinifex. Instead of acting as water-reservoirs, our ranges are becoming more like roof-tops. This is a situation that can cost downstream communities dearly. However it is a situation that can be reversed.
(Photos: Kachana Pastoral Company)
                                                          
Many of our Kimberly ranges now have the water capture and retention capacity of a tiled roof.  It has taken us along time to get to where we are; it will take a long time to get to where we need to go if we wish to reverse the effects of human factors that contribute to increased upstream run-off. But if we want to, we could start with immediate effect.

There is nothing like punching a holes to get a roof to leak. If moss and debris accumulate on the roof the leak gets worse. 
We can do the same in a landscape.
We may not change how much water drops out of the sky, but we can change how much of it runs off. What does run off we can begin to slow down.

• We can physically prepare our landscape to capture more water each year. 
• We can help our landscape store more water each year.
• We can initiate and maintain trends to this effect

While conventional approaches can be used to deal with small areas, when we wish to address whole river catchments, biological approaches are more cost-effective. These techniques mimic nature and put to use the natural behaviour of herding animals.

 
“The Kachana Rainforest”  This restored and managed wet-land system releases water
throughout the year whilst acting as a giant sponge.  (Photos: Kachana Pastoral Company)

  
Water that spills out of the “Kachana Rainforest” is crystal-clear. (Photos: Kachana Pastoral Company)

 

The solutions are there. They have been tested, they have been proven.
All over the world there are people getting such results. (Please see the links listed at the end of this paper.)

 

The solutions are there. They have been tested, they have been proven.
Why are not more people talking about them? – Reasons abound, we can only guess:

• There are financial and emotional disincentives to try things that are not common practice.
• Financially unattractive to big business. Modern management tends to adopt the 80:20 principle by focussing on the “more productive 20%” of activity that nets 80% of the profits; addressing up-steam issues requires a focus on the “less productive 80%” so there is a lesser  immediate “return on investment”
• Such solutions are politically risky. Five to ten year plans are tricky to sell; let alone a 50 year plan to avoid the sort of flood that may only come once in every 200 years.
• The solutions are not mechanical and they cannot be patented. We are talking high-skill low-tech techniques that need to be tailored for each particular situation.
• The required skills can be learned but not that easily taught. (It is not like teaching people to handle a large machinery or new soft-ware... more like training Melbourne-Cup-winners...)
• Departments and bureaucrats are constricted by legislation and guide-lines.
• Resistance to change
• “If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it” attitude. The concept of increasing unpredictability of climate or the possibility that there may be issues upstream has not registered in the collective mind of the public.
• Head in the sand. (“It will not affect this community” or “it is not my responsibility”.)
• No jobs for the boys. They would need to acquire new skills first.

 

 

Conclusion
What drops out of the sky remains within our “circle of concern”; much (perhaps not all) of what happens after that ought to be within our “circle of influence”. Disastrous situations as were experienced in parts of Australia early 2011 cannot be altogether avoided, but the effects could be significantly reduced.

During their response to the natural disaster that confronted them, Queenslanders demonstrated that community-effort needs to be the driving and defining force that musters up political will, corporate power and departmental cooperation.
Do communities in the Kimberley need to learn that lesson in the same way or can we learn from recent events in other places?
Floods, bush-fires and droughts are a direct result of poor to ineffective water-cycles.
I see no short-cuts.  There is no guarantee that we can do enough in time to prevent major expenses.
However I am confident that floods, bush-fires and droughts can be addressed simultaneously in cost-effective ways.
We require a focus on improved eco-system function rather than a focus on individual problems. The advantages to down-stream Kimberley communities would be immediate. The long-term benefit of the nation would be reflected in an increased product and new industries. 

It has been demonstrated that in Kimberley settings eco-system health can be improved dramatically within three to five years.

• Rainfall becomes more effective
• Flooding is reduced
• Droughts become less of an issue
• Fuel loads can be better managed
• Carbon is captured and stored in the soil
• Biodiversity increases
• Productivity of the landscape increases

We need to spread the word, educate and act.

 

References:

Ord Land and Water. Dunham River Goals. http://www.olw.com.au/river.html

Research sections of: www.kachana.com

www.water.wa.gov.au/PublicationStore/...
The Kimberley River Environment;  flows from the Dunham River, despite its catchment area being less than 10% of the size of the Ord River's catchment. Computer modelling of two flood ...

Topical links:
Flash water cycle demo (850 K) demonstrates the commonest causes of flooding, drought, and desertification.
http://www.managingwholes.com/flash/index.htm
How do we prepare our landscapes for rain? A visual appreciation of the challenge: http://www.kachana.com//environmental_management/pp_prepare_for_rain.php
Animal Impact: a "Power Tool". A fact-sheet describing the most important tool at our disposal to stabilise the world’s climate and to secure sustainable supplies of water and healthy nutrition: http://www.kachana.com//environmental_management/pp_animal_impact_power_tool.php

The Dunham River in “The year of the Out-Back”. A practical assessment of what is taking place upstream of Kununurra: http://www.kachana.com/environmental_management/gi_dunham_river_2002.php
Input to Kimberley Waterways paper. A grass-roots response to a departmental questionnaire: 
http://www.kachana.com/environmental_management/gi_kimberley_waterways_paper_2002.php
International recognition of work conducted by Kachana Pastoral Company: http://www.managingwholes.com/kachana.htm
Case studies of landscape restoration using low-tech high-skill techniques mentioned above. http://www.managingwholes.com/--environmental-restoration.htm
The Savory Institute. World leaders in practical responses to desertification and associated challenges:
http://www.savoryinstitute.com  

 

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