How to Stem a Global Food Crisis? Store More Water

http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2010/09/100907-food-crisis-water-storage-climate-change/

"The solution, at least a large part of it, is to “use stored water as insurance against climate change and climate variability,” according to Chartres. “If we can we capture some of these big events, like what is happening now in Pakistan, we can channel it back into wells, and old irrigation reservoirs and tanks.”"

Interesting given all the talk about ponds, swales, etc on permies.

Yes indeed.... even here in wet old Ireland we have dry spells that take us by surprise.

Water storage here is usually surplus to requirement, but provides resilience.  Expensive resilience on a large scale.

Many modern countries need to learn to use less water.  I was shocked that of the Helpers we've had here the Australian helpers seemed to have used most water, by showering more frequently and washing their clothes more frequently than we do....

     Storing more water could help stop flash floooding too, lots of small and big ponds to fill upstream would reduce the flooding downstream, this is something sepp holzer mentions but he does it in the video that is in spanish, he was talking about it in south america.

     I heard that the area flooded by the Missisipi this years was the size of italy!! What does that do to global food production?
     Add to that drought in China and the East of europe this year.

      The problems is to legislate when you can fill your ponds and when you cant, so that  people aren't hoarding water in dry weathertha should help those at all levels of a river.

       Also plants absorb carbon it can be stored in the soil in glomalin, look  up glomalin in google and fulvic and humic acids, you can look them up too, and the production of these carbon holding bits of soil is reduced by tradtional chemical farming.
      So much of the earth surface is left bare, or left fallow if it is used for wheat or bare because of overgrazing. If we always keep the soil covered in vegetation and look after soils better we can greatly reduce carbon in the air.
         The present moment is not a moment when we can forget any instrument with in our reach to stop global warming, how many floods and tornaddoes do we have to have to get people really trying with clean energy and with sinking as much carbon as possible in plants increasing the plant cover.
       Untill now there has been no really pressing reason to keep the ground covered that we knew of, now there is. to sink as much carbon as possible. Also ground heats in the sun the sunlight gets turned to heat energy instead of light when the sun hits earth which is less likely to happpen if it hits plant matter dead or alive. so covering the earth keeps us cooler it prevents us warming up
           Leaves are also very reflective they reflect light back up skyward. agri rose macaskie.
     

       I suppose we just have to grow food on every  bit of waste land to make up for the food that will get lost to the flloods and drought of our warming world.
       It is a good time to grow cereals iwould say, the price is going to soar. Plant quantities of buckwheat that is often an autumn crop, at least  i have read something to the effect that it is. It grows  very fast i have read and it does not like summer heat or frost but maybe you can get some seed by planting it after the worse heat the seed it can produce before the first frosts.   agri rose macaskie.

What a wonderful article. Thank you for posting it.

I have been thinking more and more about water storage lately. I bought six 5-gallon water storage jugs a few months back, but don't feel that that is enough. It would only provide my five-person household with water for 3-6 days. I would like to invest in a 55 gallon container.

I also want to start rainwater harvesting for my family and my garden. I have heard that this book is a great resource: http://www.harvestingrainwater.com/

Here is a free 88 page PDF from Texas dealing with rain water harvesting.
Though it is produced for Texans, the info is usable almost anywhere.

http://www.twdb.state.tx.us/publications/reports/rainwaterharvestingmanual_3rdedition.pdf

Channeling rain water into old wells is not a good idea because then ground water gets polluted. However storing it in ponds and reservoirs is perfect because then it gets purified as it percolates into the ground. The ground water can then be pumped out for use. The idea is to minimise the water that flows back to the sea through rivers after rain.

Generally ponds and reservoirs are constructed so the water doesn't percolate through the bottom.  Basins specifically constructed to infiltrate water may be a better solution than ponds which are constructed to store water.  Infiltration basins are made with bottoms which are not compacted. 

If we keep the ground covered so th esun cant heat it up too much, arent their any phisisicsts here to back up what i say about the suns energy turning into heat thermal energy under certain circumstances like when it hits eart and less so if it hits an aislating material like hay of green grass, if we can just keep things cooler there will be less evaporation and so more water.
  If you think of land left fallow even if they no longer leave land fallow that is bare for a year to rest from producing a grain crop, they dont do it much with pasture lands, even if they dont leave land fallow in North America, they still do here in Spain, so its likly they do so in a lot of other places, South America and Africa and the Mediteranean, through to the middle East the islamic world and to India and China, all of Russia, that is a lot of land left heating in the sun, just think how a sheert of metal gets hot in the sun, earth is not so likely to heat as metal does in sunlight, still it is marked as pretty good thermal mass material good at storing heat, there is an awfull lot of land left bare in the world because of grain crops, we could reduce that source of heat easily with a bit of clover seed to make ground cover for example, i have been picking clover seed, the dried flower heads last weekend, it is not very hard work and farmers have machines to do that sort of work for them.
We can try to reduce the gases that stop heat escaping the earths atmosphere  but we can also try to stop sunlight heating so. It is not so hot on top of a mountain which is nearer the sun the suns rays are called  it is called sunlight not sunheat they  only turn to heat in contact with particles in the air and the ground I reckon but i am going to read up about energy and say it because i know it.
    We  have to try everything as more and more people in the world use more energy so just reducing what we use is pretty inefficient, we have to try to things tha heat our globe as well as the global warming gases that stop that heat escaping. agri rose macaskie.