B. Mezgebu
29 October 2008
opinion
Addis Ababa — By chance the other day, I glimpsed a short poem on a local newspaper taken from an Iranian poet long gone now. In it the poet has both the river and the forest talking with each other and the mutual appreciation with one wanting to be in the other's shoe, as if it were possible.
In the poem, first the forest eulogizes the roaring river, always traveling, always sight seeing and defines the water it carries around as it goes sight seeing, as the passionate, vigorous spirit of life. And the river in turn extols the forest as being the living emerald, reflecting the beauties and the shaded rendezvous for lovers.
It is not usually the stuff of poetry to explore or analyze the physical and the scientific interrelationships of rivers, forests and the land in general. So what in fact the poet was trying to do was speak to us about aspects of life like existentialism by representing the two things; river and forest as parable. Nevertheless, what interested me in the poem was that the poet was spot on when he spoke about the interconnectedness of the two.
The value and utility of forests to the survival of rivers is well-established by now. We won't say forests are enablers of rain. Unlike in olden times, it is now commonly accepted that forests don't spawn rain.
What forests do very well, on the other hand is, regulate rainwater from day one the rain begins to hit their leaves or crowns. Not only that, their expensive root system continues to regulate further the falling raindrops and of course, it holds the land firmly in place.
Come to think of it, how do rivers manage to flow (those that do anyway) without drying up throughout the year? I have often wondered were all that water in a river comes from, long after the rains have stopped falling and the rest of the land including grasses and other vegetations have turned brown from the drier climate.
Sustainable and continuous flow by rivers must then be due to some intricate system of water regulations that goes on in nature. And by now it is well understood that forests happen to be one of the most crucial entities to do the job very effectively; although by no means the only ones.
This leads us to the wider importance of vegetative cover to the land, by any kind of vegetation, be it grass, shrub, brush, trees, etc. Vegetative cover of the soil plays a crucial role in water conservation and also the conservation of the soil itself from erosion by water.
Surface water harvesting has always been a big deal and more so in modern times. Dams of all sizes and ponds mainly, come under this category. There are huge dams scattered around the world with huge economic impacts in energy generation, and as water reservoirs for drinking and irrigation.
But water conservation in situ, within the land or soil itself is, perhaps the simplest, commonest and most useful water conservation that takes place every time it rains. That means if a country really believes to conserve water in situ, it has to give special attention to vegetative cover. You can't wantonly cut forests and plow over grasslands and hope to conserve moisture.
It is this impounding of rainwater underground or in the soil that gives rivers their permanence and determines the amount of water they carry. Not only does the soil play the part of regulating the amount of water that flows out but also helps minimize the rate of water evaporating. Aquifers within the soil are also important players in subterranean water conservation.
All that is possible, however, if only the soil surface has some form of vegetative cover. Bare soils have a greatly reduced capacity to have most of the runoff to percolate into them. To some extent, water percolation goes on even under bare soil, but far less than what soil under some kind of cover can do. That is why, perhaps, we could say Ethiopia need special regulations and policies in general for a mandatory vegetative cover, at least for certain vulnerable landscapes.
Be the first to Write a Comment!
Copyright © 2008 The Daily Monitor. All rights reserved. Distributed by AllAfrica Global Media (allAfrica.com). To contact the copyright holder directly for corrections — or for permission to republish or make other authorized use of this material, click here.
AllAfrica aggregates and indexes content from over 125 African news organizations, plus more than 200 other sources, who are responsible for their own reporting and views. Articles and commentaries that identify allAfrica.com as the publisher are produced or commissioned by AllAfrica.
