I discovered natural springs on my property in 2017 that had been piped off the property in the 1970's so the previous owner could keep horses. I opened up the water and turned it into a series of 9 ponds 6 waterfalls, 8 dams, over 100 feet of slow moving creeks. Non of this is lined. The changes in my property and the biodiversity has been mind-blowing.
Outstanding! Outside of waterfalls how did you add oxygen to the ponds? Do you have fish in your ponds and if you do did you add the fish? What type of fish? Did you add the water or allow rainfall to do so. Why do people use lining and why you choose not to? How did you keep the water in the ponds without the water seeping out from below?
@@shadeedmuhammad8107 I just got this. These are fantastic questions. I will answer them all in another comment, for now I just want you to know I have read your questions and appreciate your response.
Every time I see someone complaining about their wells running dry, I share one of your videos. I wish more people were interested. There are lots of people in rural areas who could use your techniques, start a nice orchard, and safeguard their land in case of wild fires. Firebreaks and swales could work wonders.
We don’t have beavers in Australia, but we do have Peter Andrews (developer of Natural Sequence Farming) showing how to rehydrate and regenerate landscapes, in part by using leaky weirs and swales to slow and spread water. According to Peter a lot of the Australian landscape was once well hydrated with chains of ponds.
Interesting. I never thought about the lack of beaver in Australia. Was there an analogous species that served the same purpose? Otherwise what are the origins of the old ponds?
@@amillison If I recall what Peter has said in various videos and social media posts it was vegetation that played a big part, and the slow building of natural steps from deposited materials. The introduction of livestock and land clearing, drainage etc lead to the landscape drying out. There are no beaver analogs, I guess termites and fungi do a job bringing down trees, as long as some have been left of course.
The Mulloon Institute was set up to demonstrate, research, and teach Peter Andrews’ methods applied to rehydrating landscapes. This video is a quick overview of the problems and solutions in the Australian landscape, it may be of interest Andrew. ua-cam.com/video/kbaSL94NBcw/v-deo.html
The lack of beaver means the natural processes outlined by Chris are easily disturbed and take much longer to naturally rebuild. We are always interfering with the creeks and rivers here. I often think about introducing beaver to Australia, but I imagine they would upset the native animals too much, esp. platypus. Do beaver like eucalyptus? Australia is mostly like California. I'm not sure they could adapt. If we can get more land owners, private and Crown, to implement leaky weirs then, as you say, the water would run perennially, and more land would become arable.
I've been doing this on my farm for the past 20 years. Definitely works. Since I was a kid, I've felt like I was part beaver, because building dams is so deep in my nature. ,
In the UK we are reinstating old farm ponds. Done properly, seeds buried for decades are regenerating the original water plants and restoring habitats within a few years. We are also reintroducing beavers with great success.
Love it... Be the Beaver... I remember talking to a super excited OSU grad student in the early '80s who had just spent the summer studying riparian zones and reporting radical improvements (instantly) when beaver like treatments were done to streams even using just a few logs, planks or railroad ties to make water steps to raise the water levels of the typical thin streams cut four feet down by erosion (accelerated by cattle damage). These little six foot wide water steps brought the water up to within four inches of the flood plain level. Instantly, the farmers entire meadow was green across its entirety without setting or moving a bit of irrigation pipe. What the farmer had initially agreed to with skepticism and reluctance became a point of celebration and new thinking was birthed that fencing the banks from the animals and shifting their water source to cattle troughs was NO PROBLEM AT ALL! Be the beaver... slow it down & let it spread. Love it Dr. Millison
I am convinced we need waterfowl, beavers and a full scale symbiotic team of animal and plants to terraform our environment to our own benefit as well as theirs.
I think you are right. The more I learn about 'keystone species' the more I think what we need to do is reintroduce all these animals back into their natural habitat and just let them do their thing. They will heal the damaged environment by themselves. Humans should focus on managing the process like benevolent gardeners by finding ways to balance the needs of the natural ecosystem with the needs of humans. Humans also need to focus on doing what we can to keep non-native invasive species in check.
Greetings from NYC. The beaver trade was big money for Europeans in the 18th century. John Jacob Astor built up the island of Manhattan with his riches from the beaver trade, and his family established the high society old money culture that characterized the Gilded Age. This comes at the expense of so much, including Native American tribes. The healing has begun. Thanks for your hard work.
Here in the mountains of Virginia (east coast of the US), the beavers are coming back wonderfully. There's actually a ton of rewilding quietly occurring here (the successful reintroduction of elk, the population boom of bears and other predators, and tremendous reforestation). Our waterways are getting cleaner as a result. We haven't yet attracted a beaver to our own small homestead, so we've had to manually maintain check dams and percolation pits, but we keep hoping one will move in. They're breeding so successfully in the area that pest control companies are having to trap them in the urban regions. Unfortunately, they're not legally allowed to relocate the captured beavers to those of us who want them; the law still labels beavers as a nuisance species. Still, with their population growing annually, I think it's only a matter of time before they move up our little creek. Maybe one day, all of America's ecosystems will be able to regenerate like this.
That's so sad that they won't relocate them....what a waste! A gal friend of my from Colorado went to West Virginia to visit family....she told me it was INCREDIBLY beautiful and the people were so hospitable......I'm glad to hear of your efforts, may the Lord bless richly! Oh by the way, what's a perculation pit??
@@davidschmidt270 Thanks, it is really beautiful here. A percolation pit (it goes by lots of names, and I recommend Andrew's videos on the water revolution in India) is an unlined pond or horseshoe-shaped depression dug into a slope to catch water. You can combine it with keyline trenches (swales but with an incline to move water to the pit) to harvest more water. The goals are to slow down water moving horizontally across the ground (or stop it completely) and to get that water to seep down into the aquifer instead of running off and causing erosion. It's a way to recharge the local micro-aquifer and provide ground moisture for particular plants or garden beds, or it's a way to stabilize hillsides and minimize surface erosion. In our microclimate, we get between 50" to 70" of rainfall most years, pretty evenly spaced throughout the seasons. Our terrain is steep and the driveway would wash out constantly, with the ditches turning into canyons, if we didn't divert the runoff into a bunch of percolation pits spaced alongside the driveway. The pastures are significantly greener directly downslope of each percolation pit, too. This mimics the natural terrain feature of the Appalachian old growth forests, called "pit and mound" terrain. Old forest giants fall periodically and their root systems rip out of the ground, leaving a deep hole with a berm where the roots decompose. Digging a percolation pit is our way of recreating that natural defense against erosion, since we don't have old growth forests anymore.
My family has land in the Laurention mountains in Quebec. From our land you can walk up to the top of a mountain ridge as you go you find a series ofsmall lakes and ponds connected by streams and waterfalls. At the top where you would least expect it is a large pond with you guessed it massive beaver lodges and dams. At the top of a mountain! What a wonderful world we live in where a small hard working creature can create such a natural wonder.
And it's not just ponds Retaining water and slowing down its flow can be on a smaller scale as well. I'm working at a wolf sanctuary in an arid region. In summer often get short but strong thunder storms. Unfortunately there are no beavers in the region and water often runs of quickly on the surface, washing out roads instead of seeping into the ground. On our property here, when we plant trees, we create little sales to retain some of that water. I wanna do this on a bigger scale on the hillside of our watershed. We used to have a creek running through the enclosures but I has dried up and the little spring barely provides any water anymore. I hope in the long term (even with the changing climate) we can restore that spring a little bit
Look around UA-cam to see videos on building Beaver Dam Analogs. BDA's have been used to great effect in arid regions. Easy to build and taking directly from the beaver's example. The hardest part, really, is just waiting for the rain to come so you can see the water back up and start ponding. I've built BDA's that were only a foot tall, using nothing but twigs and other forest debris. Once packed with mud, they hold back a thin sheet of water that spreads out over a hundred square feet and is several inches deep. The water will seep through, sure, but that's the point - slowing the flow so it can sink into the soil rather than causing erosion.
Just something to be cautious of...be extremely careful of using water retention methods on hillsides. If you get too much rainfall for your soil profile to hold, it can cause liquefaction and some mass wasting forms like slumping, mud flows and landslides. Mudflows are highly likely if your bedrock is impervious granite or basalt and your soil end up getting oversaturated. This is actually a frequent situation in my state, which suffers frequent landslide even in dense reserved forested hills, because our soil profile sits directly over hard impervious rock and our monsoons are getting much more precipitation due to global warming. Water retention structures are geomorphologicaly more safer for extremely gentle slopes or flat terrains. For hillsides it's safer to let the water run off quickly let the ground water recharge up from collecting in the valleys.
This is a huge eye opener, everything is interconnected and people need to understand that their experience is the direct result of their actions. I've learned a lot about the movement of water, thank you
Good to see, not least because one of my several greats uncles was the chief factor at Fort Vancouver, running a network of 33 forts busily destroying the beavers from San Francisco to Alaska and across to the Rockies. Glad they are fixing what he did.
Beavers were obliterated in North America due to fashion. I bet your great uncle was getting a pretty penny hunting down beavers. Throughout the 19th century, there was an unquenchable demand for beaver pelts to make fancy top hats for men. Of course, as the population of men exploded throughout North America, the demand for beaver pelts zoomed upwards. That's how 400 million beavers were driven down to 500,000 in about 100 years. The only thing that saved the beaver from complete extinction was the 1920s, when fashion changed suddenly and demand among men for top hats collapsed almost completely. Otherwise, it would've been bleak. Now that 500,000 population of beavers has slowly climbed up to 9 million today.
Fantastic video. I've recently started chewing the bottoms of trees in my area to simulate the beaver. I've seen little affect so far. I'll keep you updated.
Super cool video! Since 1999, Denmark has been reintroducing beavers to rivers and creeks as a part of a major restoration project to increase the area of forest marshlands which in turn supports a multitude of other species and plants. They are so important for the eco-system... and they are cute as well :)
Ima change the world man and you’re a key factor in it. People dismiss me whenever I talk about healing the earth with science and natural order but then I hit them with your channel and shit their hat and doubt down
Another great chapter in your series Andrew. I love your channel, no BS, just fact and concise explanations to the challenges we are facing. I get so frustrated seeing the gouged out waterways with eroding banks, devoid of flaura here in Australian farm lands. I really cant get my head around the apparent need to clear paddocks of every last tree to maximise grazing area. Leaky wiers are the way forward. I wish it was mandated by goverment to have them installed to repair some of the damage that has been done.
Very excited to start planning our first pond project on our 5 acre permaculture farm! It’s in a deep holler where beaver used to sink the water into the forest before they were nearly wiped out. Looking forward to having some delicious fish protein, abundant irrigation, a watering hole for wildlife, and recharging the springs downstream!
Love every video of yours. Always clear and informative, and never asking for anything in return, other than to use these principles you preach in good will. Cheers Andy
Just read Paul Hawken's "Regeneration: Ending the climate crisis in one generation." One of the segments in it discusses the rôle of beavers. Such observations from diverse sources encourage me greatly.
I was looking for a new subject loved your vid I stayed on a permaculture peninsula on a Scottish island best 2 and a half years of my life at that time. We need more of you and like minded people we all need to be inviromentaly awoken and accept we need to educate our selves on how to look after this wee planet under our feet. POND LIFE FOR LIFE .
I would imagine these projects also reduce destructive flooding during heavy rains, as the ponds and surrounding meadows allow for storage and slow release of the extra water.
The increased organic content of the soil throughout the watershed also increases soil porosity, helping absorb rainfall before it can runoff and accumulate into floods
Every time I watch one if these videos I realize it's really up to us to make the necessary changes, starting with wanting less and using less. Not everyone is in a position to do the wonderful things on as larger scale but we can all contribute.
My city is adding ponds to the suburban concrete drainage channels that replaced the natural creeks. They keep the channels but build a parallel oxbow with an upstream weir on the channel that diverts water into the oxbow and an outlet back to the channel at the downstream end of the oxbow. The weir allows overflow into the channel if there’s high flow. The city landscapes the oxbow as a park for locals but also provides islands and reed banks for wildlife. The ponds are stocked with native fish. People love the ponds and parks and birds immediately move in, primarily waterfowl of various sorts but also insectivores like swifts and swallows, meadow birds in the park etc.
Thank you greatly for this excellent video. For the past 30 years I have been writing poetry and articles in my own language Urdu to promote these selfsame ideas. If I had any acreage of my own I would implement permaculture techniques and water cycle restoration measures to put my own little bit back into mother earth. I share your videos with all of my family and friends. Many thanks again.
I have long been an advocate of ponds in most environments, and water storage in general, as being extremely useful for most farmers, and i had also seen material about the use of swales as part of regenerating dry areas, but this video really takes it to a whole new level as it applies to the wider environment and the water table. Thank you very much.
Love what you're doing man! The permaculture, the hydrology education, everything. I really loved you're videos on India. It's so inspiring to see a push for a healthier planet on such a large scale. Look forward to seeing what accomplishments they've made since your last videos.
Thank you for sharing! you're an inspiration to me! Just graduated with an engineering degree, hoping to find a way to apply my skills to this sort of work!
Intelligent people like you will help save this planet. Mother Nature is our best teacher ❤ without her man would cease to exist. We need to appreciate and respect her blessings and learn from what she has to offer us in order for mankind to continue to exist. If we destroy nature we destroy humanity.
*Not an engineer - but a solar panel cover could be an interesting way to reduce evaporation on the wide, seemingly moderately shallow seepage pools in India. Smaller panels could be installed on stilts during the dry season and adjust as needed for water and sun collection? edit to add: I am always so encouraged by these videos, thank you!
I'm from Illinois and while it might seem like we don't need these types of projects as badly, people forget our year round precipitation is an average. The western half of the eastern US is subject to very high variability. One of the highest 24 hour rainfalls recorded nationally happened a few miles from my house and entire neighborhoods were flooded practically overnight. On the opposite end, our July and August months are actually net negative in terms of rainfall versus evapotranspiration and the ecosystems as well as the cooling effect of the trees we humans like could use more water supply in those months, especially on a dry year like this one is shaping up to be.
Look up Beaver Dam Analogs on UA-cam. Tons of videos on the things and how huge a difference they can make. You can build them in no time flat and they work just like the beavers said they'd work. Plus, it's just fun.
... and let the beavers come back. Here in Germany they were allowed to come back in many regions over the past 20 years and people usually love them, or ignore them, but what's still missing is appreciation of how important water infiltration is for the landscape. Meanwhile some regions here get water shortages in summer. Beautiful video, that is worth watching with a big bag of peanut flips... both the message and the video footage.
Love your content. I have a beautiful sloped property that I plan on turning into a small permaculture farm. Your videos are educating me very well thanks for everything.
To promote seeping into poor drainage soils, could it make sense to auger out some post holes to help water infiltrate deeper? I’ve never seen this done but I think about it often. & a big thank you for all the permaculture content you’ve shared with us! I plan to build a pond on my dry context property, and will share these videos to help convince my neighbors to do the same!
I've thought of this a lot too. I know that the Greening The Desert project in Jordan had a bunch of 1x2 meter pits they dug and filled with spiky legume tree cuttings, and they were made in part to expedite the permeation of captured rainwater into the site's soil, but i remember the mulch pits purpose being specifically states as intending to create soil microbiology sinks where soil bacteria and fungi could get a jump start and spread to the soil of the rest of the site. So I have no doubt that post holes acting like numerous mini leaky cisterns would work to expedite water penetration, but I also have never seen it done with increased water harvesting and permeation as the primary goal.
For poor drainage soils it may be better to simply improve the drainage by mixing in other agregates like sand and gravel to the poorly draining clay. However the #1 inpact on soil seepage will be water pressure so if you want better seepage then make a bigger pond. (More surface area increases the total area leaking into the ground, and more depth means faster seepage into the area covered by the pond) in my area the typical beaver pond is 8ft deep and a couple hundred feet along each axis. (Obviously this is affected by topography and beavers are only really trying to silence the sound of running water and ensure deep enough water to hide from predators in) but to me this is the size a pond should be if the goal is ecological benefits.
Excellent video presentation with important information, we must be aware and have courage to protect and fight for the resources of our planet, and water is one of them. let's take care of water with ponds of life.
Thanks much for sharing and educating. Much appreciated. Pond size is a big factor in success in highly evaporative contexts. The pond or swale should be easily shaded -1/3-2/3.beavers accommodate this need by truncating open runs and coppicing fast growing riparian woodies like willow and cottonwood.
Thank you for this informative video Andrew and emphasis on Beavers and thinking/acting like Beavers in restoring the hydrology of a degraded ecosystem. Please come visit us in Northern California, just across the border from the Beaver state. :) We are trying to help in restoring the siskyiou Klamath watershed while building a complete offgrid self sustainable permaculture based agrofarm with native vegetation. We can use your great insights and healing wisdom here. Cheers!
Awesome video, always thinking about water and management strategies You always give so much insight and rounded education for people new to the topic 🍄
In your other video (permaculture ponds) you state that woody perennials cannot be placed on the embankment because their roots might cause leakage in the holding wall. In this video in 7 seeds farm I see plenty of woody perennials sitting on the embankment. Am I missing some crucial details here?
Great question. At both of these sites, Seven Seeds and Cougar mtn, the vegetation is on the inside of the embankment, with no vegetation on the outside. If trees were on the outside of the embankment, then they would send their roots towards water and compromise the embankment by creating pathways for water to leak through. I still think if you consulted with a civil engineer it is not recommended for the structural integrity of the embankment to have trees on the inside, but you can see it working just fine for these ponds in this particular soil, moisture, and climate conditions.
@@myronplatte8354 yes, that makes sense. I believe that the species in these ponds are small growing willow shrubs. I wouldn't recommend anything that was actually going to get big
Hey Andrew I have a question in places like the west where there's so much desert like Nevada how do we use ponds to help us out. Lake Mead is slowly evaporating and I would love to get to know how to help it
In a dry climate with high evaporation, open water storage is not so good. Check out Brad Lancaster's "Rainwater Harvesting for Drylands and Beyond" book for all the answers
In those areas it's important to have trees to cover the water and reduce evaporation. I'm sure there are also plants that live on the water surface which will help as well.
@@tesha199 The dry winds in the area make that nearly impossible. They can't help the lake directly, but in the hills around it they can incorporate swales with fast growing, drought resistant trees. Keep planting young trees under the old ones, then cut down the large trees and chip them in place. Wash, rinse, repeat. They get heavy rains in that area a few times a year. They should be cashing in on it, instead of letting it sink into deep aquifers.
Planting trees that has no floor, and hopefully with time you will archive it. Look for scientists who will provide you with why and how no floor. I am indigenous Fijian..
Consider that development has also put a big "rain coat" over land that used to catch water and recharge aquifers. Adding recharge wells to each roof system (like Andrew highlight in a video on urban India) and making public parks and landscape design catch and hold water to serve this function would help immensely. Don't forget, Mead used to be and stay quite full. What's changed is how water interacts with the land... and there are a lot of people with demands on the supply...
Do you have plans for making that 3d box you use with what looks like sand? for modeling? that just feels like a great project for my teens to use for geography projects, and oddly history projects, etc. Seriously love that box! also Love your vids!
this explanation was excellent!!!! we the people are the ones who have to do our bit to contribute good and positive things to this problem and minimize these damages
I have a small stream that runs through my backyard. It was diverted there, and over the course of 50 or so years, has apparently gone from a soggy depression in a field, to a 6 foot plus deep ditch. Would building some artificial log dams help to keep erosion at bay? I'm currently researching slope stabilizing grasses, bushes and trees, as I'm working to remove the invasive bittersweet and multiflora rose which have been choking out the trees holding much of the bank together. Anyone have suggestions for native (to the northeast US) or non invasive things I could use?
@Subtle Nature we are in the Winnepesaukee River watershed. The property is sandwiched between Gunstock mountain and Lake Winnepesaukee. I'm pretty sure this stream comes off of the mountain somewhere and it ends up in one of the many small ponds before going into the Winnepesaukee River, then the Merrimack. It certainly picks up a lot of trash. I'm in there every other week taking the most random crap out of it. Found a (thankfully closed) bottle of chainsaw oil in there last week....
@Subtle Nature Right now there is a large stand of young poplar, plus some oaks, a few random pines and weirdly enough, apple trees. What do you recommend in terms of timeline for ripping out invasives/planting new natives? And do you have any suggestions on getting the damn bittersweet and rose roots to die? I don't want to use any herbicides, especially so close to the water, but they can grow back from even the tiniest part of the root. My technique so far has been to run around in the winter/spring with a pair of loppers, cutting any vine/thorn I see, and then pulling them out of the trees once they are dead and brittle in the fall. Keeps the tree damage to a minimum at least. But the stream runs along a 700' line, so it's taking a while, and I've been working on clearing out the thickets of crap.
Great Eco Engineer. Really We have to act like Beavers...We should give more chance to Beavers through natural vegetation!🌱🌊 I'll share this video to all my water conservationist friends in India.
Contureing is a good practice too.Where it is done on large.scale inparticular,the impact on the soil is amazing.They stop erosion,directing water along slopes and funnelling it to branch out across slopes Ethiopia
Same concept is used in Banaue Philippines. They made rice terraces that slowly flows the water down from the mountain. Now parts of Americas, Africa, India, and Middle East, are using the same concept.
I discovered natural springs on my property in 2017 that had been piped off the property in the 1970's so the previous owner could keep horses. I opened up the water and turned it into a series of 9 ponds 6 waterfalls, 8 dams, over 100 feet of slow moving creeks. Non of this is lined. The changes in my property and the biodiversity has been mind-blowing.
Outstanding! Outside of waterfalls how did you add oxygen to the ponds? Do you have fish in your ponds and if you do did you add the fish? What type of fish? Did you add the water or allow rainfall to do so. Why do people use lining and why you choose not to? How did you keep the water in the ponds without the water seeping out from below?
@@shadeedmuhammad8107 I just got this. These are fantastic questions. I will answer them all in another comment, for now I just want you to know I have read your questions and appreciate your response.
@@shadeedmuhammad8107 Same, I'm really interested in the answers. I'm just commenting so I'll be notified when you reply :)
Same here. Would love to explore this on my farm.
@@shanshui.garden9012 i am also following for the answer
Every time I see someone complaining about their wells running dry, I share one of your videos. I wish more people were interested. There are lots of people in rural areas who could use your techniques, start a nice orchard, and safeguard their land in case of wild fires. Firebreaks and swales could work wonders.
Thank you so much for sharing my work! I'm glad to hear you're developing an eye for permaculture solutions and spreading the word :-) Cheers!
Great idea
I'm in Rural Southern California...here looking for sustainable water solutions for 2.5 acres of raw Agricultural zoned land
@@enhancedsimplicity9708 Watch his videos and learn.
I wish people to wake up and heal the planet with ponds!!! I subscribe to your channel Ronnie! Have a great week!
We don’t have beavers in Australia, but we do have Peter Andrews (developer of Natural Sequence Farming) showing how to rehydrate and regenerate landscapes, in part by using leaky weirs and swales to slow and spread water. According to Peter a lot of the Australian landscape was once well hydrated with chains of ponds.
Interesting. I never thought about the lack of beaver in Australia. Was there an analogous species that served the same purpose? Otherwise what are the origins of the old ponds?
@@amillison If I recall what Peter has said in various videos and social media posts it was vegetation that played a big part, and the slow building of natural steps from deposited materials. The introduction of livestock and land clearing, drainage etc lead to the landscape drying out. There are no beaver analogs, I guess termites and fungi do a job bringing down trees, as long as some have been left of course.
The Mulloon Institute was set up to demonstrate, research, and teach Peter Andrews’ methods applied to rehydrating landscapes. This video is a quick overview of the problems and solutions in the Australian landscape, it may be of interest Andrew.
ua-cam.com/video/kbaSL94NBcw/v-deo.html
The lack of beaver means the natural processes outlined by Chris are easily disturbed and take much longer to naturally rebuild. We are always interfering with the creeks and rivers here. I often think about introducing beaver to Australia, but I imagine they would upset the native animals too much, esp. platypus. Do beaver like eucalyptus? Australia is mostly like California. I'm not sure they could adapt. If we can get more land owners, private and Crown, to implement leaky weirs then, as you say, the water would run perennially, and more land would become arable.
willows get a bad wrap in our water ways but they do slow the water down
I've been doing this on my farm for the past 20 years. Definitely works. Since I was a kid, I've felt like I was part beaver, because building dams is so deep in my nature. ,
Men, get the torches and pitchforks. We have a live one here.🦦🦦🦦 beaver
I am a honey bee :-) .
Same!! I have pictures of me as a kid building rock and stick dams across any creak I could find.
In the UK we are reinstating old farm ponds. Done properly, seeds buried for decades are regenerating the original water plants and restoring habitats within a few years. We are also reintroducing beavers with great success.
Love it... Be the Beaver... I remember talking to a super excited OSU grad student in the early '80s who had just spent the summer studying riparian zones and reporting radical improvements (instantly) when beaver like treatments were done to streams even using just a few logs, planks or railroad ties to make water steps to raise the water levels of the typical thin streams cut four feet down by erosion (accelerated by cattle damage). These little six foot wide water steps brought the water up to within four inches of the flood plain level. Instantly, the farmers entire meadow was green across its entirety without setting or moving a bit of irrigation pipe. What the farmer had initially agreed to with skepticism and reluctance became a point of celebration and new thinking was birthed that fencing the banks from the animals and shifting their water source to cattle troughs was NO PROBLEM AT ALL! Be the beaver... slow it down & let it spread. Love it Dr. Millison
I am convinced we need waterfowl, beavers and a full scale symbiotic team of animal and plants to terraform our environment to our own benefit as well as theirs.
I think you are right. The more I learn about 'keystone species' the more I think what we need to do is reintroduce all these animals back into their natural habitat and just let them do their thing. They will heal the damaged environment by themselves. Humans should focus on managing the process like benevolent gardeners by finding ways to balance the needs of the natural ecosystem with the needs of humans. Humans also need to focus on doing what we can to keep non-native invasive species in check.
It's now or never .. would you happen to live in California... just asking because we need to speak up now ...✌️
Greetings from NYC. The beaver trade was big money for Europeans in the 18th century. John Jacob Astor built up the island of Manhattan with his riches from the beaver trade, and his family established the high society old money culture that characterized the Gilded Age. This comes at the expense of so much, including Native American tribes. The healing has begun. Thanks for your hard work.
Here in the mountains of Virginia (east coast of the US), the beavers are coming back wonderfully. There's actually a ton of rewilding quietly occurring here (the successful reintroduction of elk, the population boom of bears and other predators, and tremendous reforestation). Our waterways are getting cleaner as a result.
We haven't yet attracted a beaver to our own small homestead, so we've had to manually maintain check dams and percolation pits, but we keep hoping one will move in. They're breeding so successfully in the area that pest control companies are having to trap them in the urban regions. Unfortunately, they're not legally allowed to relocate the captured beavers to those of us who want them; the law still labels beavers as a nuisance species. Still, with their population growing annually, I think it's only a matter of time before they move up our little creek.
Maybe one day, all of America's ecosystems will be able to regenerate like this.
That is true ‘regeneration’ 😍
That's so sad that they won't relocate them....what a waste!
A gal friend of my from Colorado went to West Virginia to visit family....she told me it was INCREDIBLY beautiful and the people were so hospitable......I'm glad to hear of your efforts, may the Lord bless richly!
Oh by the way, what's a perculation pit??
@@davidschmidt270 Thanks, it is really beautiful here. A percolation pit (it goes by lots of names, and I recommend Andrew's videos on the water revolution in India) is an unlined pond or horseshoe-shaped depression dug into a slope to catch water. You can combine it with keyline trenches (swales but with an incline to move water to the pit) to harvest more water. The goals are to slow down water moving horizontally across the ground (or stop it completely) and to get that water to seep down into the aquifer instead of running off and causing erosion. It's a way to recharge the local micro-aquifer and provide ground moisture for particular plants or garden beds, or it's a way to stabilize hillsides and minimize surface erosion.
In our microclimate, we get between 50" to 70" of rainfall most years, pretty evenly spaced throughout the seasons. Our terrain is steep and the driveway would wash out constantly, with the ditches turning into canyons, if we didn't divert the runoff into a bunch of percolation pits spaced alongside the driveway. The pastures are significantly greener directly downslope of each percolation pit, too.
This mimics the natural terrain feature of the Appalachian old growth forests, called "pit and mound" terrain. Old forest giants fall periodically and their root systems rip out of the ground, leaving a deep hole with a berm where the roots decompose. Digging a percolation pit is our way of recreating that natural defense against erosion, since we don't have old growth forests anymore.
Here’s to hoping they can make their way down to Georgia again, I’ve only seen two or three on the Chatahoochee my whole life
@@one_field thank you onefield !
My family has land in the Laurention mountains in Quebec. From our land you can walk up to the top of a mountain ridge as you go you find a series ofsmall lakes and ponds connected by streams and waterfalls. At the top where you would least expect it is a large pond with you guessed it massive beaver lodges and dams. At the top of a mountain! What a wonderful world we live in where a small hard working creature can create such a natural wonder.
Humans can become a "keystone species". First time I'm hearing it. 🙂 I like it.
Yes I like that, too. A lot to aspire to!
The Story-Telling, the editing and the amount of useful information in this video are just a great combination. Thanks Andrew
the sound track was a mis-step , though . common error among rookies having the background noise drown out the narration . that'
s how we learn
And it's not just ponds
Retaining water and slowing down its flow can be on a smaller scale as well.
I'm working at a wolf sanctuary in an arid region. In summer often get short but strong thunder storms. Unfortunately there are no beavers in the region and water often runs of quickly on the surface, washing out roads instead of seeping into the ground.
On our property here, when we plant trees, we create little sales to retain some of that water.
I wanna do this on a bigger scale on the hillside of our watershed. We used to have a creek running through the enclosures but I has dried up and the little spring barely provides any water anymore. I hope in the long term (even with the changing climate) we can restore that spring a little bit
See CT
Look around UA-cam to see videos on building Beaver Dam Analogs. BDA's have been used to great effect in arid regions. Easy to build and taking directly from the beaver's example. The hardest part, really, is just waiting for the rain to come so you can see the water back up and start ponding. I've built BDA's that were only a foot tall, using nothing but twigs and other forest debris. Once packed with mud, they hold back a thin sheet of water that spreads out over a hundred square feet and is several inches deep. The water will seep through, sure, but that's the point - slowing the flow so it can sink into the soil rather than causing erosion.
Just something to be cautious of...be extremely careful of using water retention methods on hillsides. If you get too much rainfall for your soil profile to hold, it can cause liquefaction and some mass wasting forms like slumping, mud flows and landslides. Mudflows are highly likely if your bedrock is impervious granite or basalt and your soil end up getting oversaturated.
This is actually a frequent situation in my state, which suffers frequent landslide even in dense reserved forested hills, because our soil profile sits directly over hard impervious rock and our monsoons are getting much more precipitation due to global warming.
Water retention structures are geomorphologicaly more safer for extremely gentle slopes or flat terrains. For hillsides it's safer to let the water run off quickly let the ground water recharge up from collecting in the valleys.
This is a huge eye opener, everything is interconnected and people need to understand that their experience is the direct result of their actions. I've learned a lot about the movement of water, thank you
Sadly very few people care, thats the problem
Wow! Can I do a pond like that in Florida?
Huh. I've been told the only way to heal the planet is by banning all fossil fuels and voting Democrat.
Good to see, not least because one of my several greats uncles was the chief factor at Fort Vancouver, running a network of 33 forts busily destroying the beavers from San Francisco to Alaska and across to the Rockies. Glad they are fixing what he did.
Beavers were obliterated in North America due to fashion. I bet your great uncle was getting a pretty penny hunting down beavers. Throughout the 19th century, there was an unquenchable demand for beaver pelts to make fancy top hats for men. Of course, as the population of men exploded throughout North America, the demand for beaver pelts zoomed upwards. That's how 400 million beavers were driven down to 500,000 in about 100 years. The only thing that saved the beaver from complete extinction was the 1920s, when fashion changed suddenly and demand among men for top hats collapsed almost completely. Otherwise, it would've been bleak. Now that 500,000 population of beavers has slowly climbed up to 9 million today.
Me too :)
Yet another magnificent video Andrew - thank you! I will share it far and wide . . .
me too!
Fantastic video. I've recently started chewing the bottoms of trees in my area to simulate the beaver. I've seen little affect so far. I'll keep you updated.
OMG that was funny!!! Sure, keep us updated!
The efficient use of water will be key in our overheated world, this is a very important issue that we all need to know and try to improve🙏
Yum.... nutrition
Man, your videos (and the Paani foundation's) are a breath of fresh air. Thank you.
See agrofloresra in Brasil.
Very inspirational. I can now boldly proclaim that I love beavers more than I used to and I really love beaver.
My brother has a newfound appreciation for beavers because of this video :)
Beaver wakes up in the morning, looks around, and just thinks DAMN
This channel gives me hope.
Super cool video! Since 1999, Denmark has been reintroducing beavers to rivers and creeks as a part of a major restoration project to increase the area of forest marshlands which in turn supports a multitude of other species and plants. They are so important for the eco-system... and they are cute as well :)
Ima change the world man and you’re a key factor in it. People dismiss me whenever I talk about healing the earth with science and natural order but then I hit them with your channel and shit their hat and doubt down
Another great chapter in your series Andrew. I love your channel, no BS, just fact and concise explanations to the challenges we are facing.
I get so frustrated seeing the gouged out waterways with eroding banks, devoid of flaura here in Australian farm lands. I really cant get my head around the apparent need to clear paddocks of every last tree to maximise grazing area.
Leaky wiers are the way forward. I wish it was mandated by goverment to have them installed to repair some of the damage that has been done.
Easier in New Zealand for the water.
That’s crazy! The trees help shade the livestock and keep them healthier and from getting sun burnt!
Very excited to start planning our first pond project on our 5 acre permaculture farm! It’s in a deep holler where beaver used to sink the water into the forest before they were nearly wiped out.
Looking forward to having some delicious fish protein, abundant irrigation, a watering hole for wildlife, and recharging the springs downstream!
For years, I have been preaching the gospel of ponds and lakes. California needs to wake up and take Andrew's advice.
Does California have laws against storing water from a natural stream? The water rights are owned by corporations?
@@ronniemcmaster8657 If it's true that's perverse
Brilliant. A voice of hope amid the doomsayers.
Love every video of yours.
Always clear and informative, and never asking for anything in return, other than to use these principles you preach in good will. Cheers Andy
Brilliant, Andrew. Please keep up the excellent work.
Just read Paul Hawken's "Regeneration: Ending the climate crisis in one generation." One of the segments in it discusses the rôle of beavers. Such observations from diverse sources encourage me greatly.
I was looking for a new subject loved your vid I stayed on a permaculture peninsula on a Scottish island best 2 and a half years of my life at that time. We need more of you and like minded people we all need to be inviromentaly awoken and accept we need to educate our selves on how to look after this wee planet under our feet. POND LIFE FOR LIFE .
I would imagine these projects also reduce destructive flooding during heavy rains, as the ponds and surrounding meadows allow for storage and slow release of the extra water.
The increased organic content of the soil throughout the watershed also increases soil porosity, helping absorb rainfall before it can runoff and accumulate into floods
This is abundance cheat code. Thanks for spreading knowledge.
I love beavers ❤️❤️❤️ They are so much more important than we know. Without beavers the landscape becomes barren and watersheds dry up.
I love beavers and am doing exactly this already on my desert parcel. It's awesome to behold and I'm so excited
This was so beautifully written and edited. I never watch these nature docs but this genuinely got me interested in beavers and ponds.
Every time I watch one if these videos I realize it's really up to us to make the necessary changes, starting with wanting less and using less. Not everyone is in a position to do the wonderful things on as larger scale but we can all contribute.
My city is adding ponds to the suburban concrete drainage channels that replaced the natural creeks. They keep the channels but build a parallel oxbow with an upstream weir on the channel that diverts water into the oxbow and an outlet back to the channel at the downstream end of the oxbow. The weir allows overflow into the channel if there’s high flow. The city landscapes the oxbow as a park for locals but also provides islands and reed banks for wildlife. The ponds are stocked with native fish. People love the ponds and parks and birds immediately move in, primarily waterfowl of various sorts but also insectivores like swifts and swallows, meadow birds in the park etc.
Very cool, thanks for sharing!
Thank you greatly for this excellent video. For the past 30 years I have been writing poetry and articles in my own language Urdu to promote these selfsame ideas. If I had any acreage of my own I would implement permaculture techniques and water cycle restoration measures to put my own little bit back into mother earth. I share your videos with all of my family and friends. Many thanks again.
I always feel hopeful for us after watching your posts, thanks.
I have long been an advocate of ponds in most environments, and water storage in general, as being extremely useful for most farmers, and i had also seen material about the use of swales as part of regenerating dry areas, but this video really takes it to a whole new level as it applies to the wider environment and the water table. Thank you very much.
This is genius!
And actually pretty common sense when you think about!
The sight of the people screaming and pouncing in the stadium is the antithesis of this interesting video. I like beaver. . . the animal. ;-)
Love what you're doing man! The permaculture, the hydrology education, everything. I really loved you're videos on India. It's so inspiring to see a push for a healthier planet on such a large scale. Look forward to seeing what accomplishments they've made since your last videos.
This is one of the best channels on UA-cam now. I feel like I should acknowledge Andrew Millison in all my climate fiction writing.
Your work just keeps getting better! Spread the word
The planet is doing ok for the most part. We need to heal humanity!!!
I will take this journey with you Millison, thank you
Thank you for sharing! you're an inspiration to me! Just graduated with an engineering degree, hoping to find a way to apply my skills to this sort of work!
Awesome!
Intelligent people like you will help save this planet. Mother Nature is our best teacher ❤ without her man would cease to exist. We need to appreciate and respect her blessings and learn from what she has to offer us in order for mankind to continue to exist. If we destroy nature we destroy humanity.
*Not an engineer - but a solar panel cover could be an interesting way to reduce evaporation on the wide, seemingly moderately shallow seepage pools in India. Smaller panels could be installed on stilts during the dry season and adjust as needed for water and sun collection?
edit to add: I am always so encouraged by these videos, thank you!
You can find similar success example in China, it has been come true.
Brilliant. Simple answer to a difficult question.
Thank you, Andrew, for making these mini documentaries(?). My wife and I really learned a lot from watching your permaculture design course videos.
And planting trees makes it rain.
Great work, Andrew!
Thanks! Take care :-)
I'm from Illinois and while it might seem like we don't need these types of projects as badly, people forget our year round precipitation is an average. The western half of the eastern US is subject to very high variability. One of the highest 24 hour rainfalls recorded nationally happened a few miles from my house and entire neighborhoods were flooded practically overnight. On the opposite end, our July and August months are actually net negative in terms of rainfall versus evapotranspiration and the ecosystems as well as the cooling effect of the trees we humans like could use more water supply in those months, especially on a dry year like this one is shaping up to be.
Look up Beaver Dam Analogs on UA-cam. Tons of videos on the things and how huge a difference they can make. You can build them in no time flat and they work just like the beavers said they'd work. Plus, it's just fun.
thanks, Andrew, another great short documentary! I love all your videos.
Great video! I've recently been looking for concise videos on water in landscape , and this one sums it up well. Great production too!
Thank you so much! Glad it was helpful :)
I like how you showed the one touchdown ever made by the Beavers
This was amazing! I hope more people can think like this 💖
... and let the beavers come back. Here in Germany they were allowed to come back in many regions over the past 20 years and people usually love them, or ignore them, but what's still missing is appreciation of how important water infiltration is for the landscape. Meanwhile some regions here get water shortages in summer.
Beautiful video, that is worth watching with a big bag of peanut flips... both the message and the video footage.
Amazing would've been even better if more ppl including Somalilanders were watching this.. Thanks team Andrew.
I live in north eastern kenya and all somalis need to learn this .
@@ifrahburalle6233 Definitely. 👏
Excellent initiative, let's bring back life into the arid landscapes through this
Thank you, Andrew, another brilliant explanation.
Love the honouring of the great Beavers, aroha from NZ Aotearoa 💖
Love your content. I have a beautiful sloped property that I plan on turning into a small permaculture farm. Your videos are educating me very well thanks for everything.
I think that oasian agriculture is the most advanced.
what a stunning , guys. The LANDSCAPE is so nice. especially. in the onshoes.
To promote seeping into poor drainage soils, could it make sense to auger out some post holes to help water infiltrate deeper? I’ve never seen this done but I think about it often.
& a big thank you for all the permaculture content you’ve shared with us! I plan to build a pond on my dry context property, and will share these videos to help convince my neighbors to do the same!
I've thought of this a lot too. I know that the Greening The Desert project in Jordan had a bunch of 1x2 meter pits they dug and filled with spiky legume tree cuttings, and they were made in part to expedite the permeation of captured rainwater into the site's soil, but i remember the mulch pits purpose being specifically states as intending to create soil microbiology sinks where soil bacteria and fungi could get a jump start and spread to the soil of the rest of the site. So I have no doubt that post holes acting like numerous mini leaky cisterns would work to expedite water penetration, but I also have never seen it done with increased water harvesting and permeation as the primary goal.
Look into groundwater injection wells. They are a bit more industrious and usually fed from rooftop rainwater.
For poor drainage soils it may be better to simply improve the drainage by mixing in other agregates like sand and gravel to the poorly draining clay.
However the #1 inpact on soil seepage will be water pressure so if you want better seepage then make a bigger pond. (More surface area increases the total area leaking into the ground, and more depth means faster seepage into the area covered by the pond) in my area the typical beaver pond is 8ft deep and a couple hundred feet along each axis. (Obviously this is affected by topography and beavers are only really trying to silence the sound of running water and ensure deep enough water to hide from predators in) but to me this is the size a pond should be if the goal is ecological benefits.
The beaver..... what a useful and cute animal!
Sir you are Awesome. I just love your video. They way you observe and explain the things is just awesome...
I'm so glad you think so, thanks for the comment!
Excellent video presentation with important information, we must be aware and have courage to protect and fight for the resources of our planet, and water is one of them.
let's take care of water with ponds of life.
Thanks much for sharing and educating. Much appreciated. Pond size is a big factor in success in highly evaporative contexts. The pond or swale should be easily shaded -1/3-2/3.beavers accommodate this need by truncating open runs and coppicing fast growing riparian woodies like willow and cottonwood.
...the beaver coppicing these trees results in bushier/denser regrowth - 1 trunk to many.
Glad channels like your exist, thanks
Really enjoyed this video, I aspire to have my own permaculture farm one day, for now a raised bed is a fun way to practice. Keep up the great work :)
Admirable advocacy and work!
Thank you for this informative video Andrew and emphasis on Beavers and thinking/acting like Beavers in restoring the hydrology of a degraded ecosystem.
Please come visit us in Northern California, just across the border from the Beaver state. :)
We are trying to help in restoring the siskyiou Klamath watershed while building a complete offgrid self sustainable permaculture based agrofarm with native vegetation. We can use your great insights and healing wisdom here. Cheers!
Nature is beautiful and keeps us grounded to mother earth. My 2cents.
Awesome video, always thinking about water and management strategies
You always give so much insight and rounded education for people new to the topic 🍄
I so appreciate the kind feedback! Cheers!
amazing
Thank you! Your support is deeply appreciated :-)
In your other video (permaculture ponds) you state that woody perennials cannot be placed on the embankment because their roots might cause leakage in the holding wall. In this video in 7 seeds farm I see plenty of woody perennials sitting on the embankment. Am I missing some crucial details here?
I guess they're not trying to create perfectly waterproof ponds, not minding sinne of it leaking through?
Great question. At both of these sites, Seven Seeds and Cougar mtn, the vegetation is on the inside of the embankment, with no vegetation on the outside. If trees were on the outside of the embankment, then they would send their roots towards water and compromise the embankment by creating pathways for water to leak through. I still think if you consulted with a civil engineer it is not recommended for the structural integrity of the embankment to have trees on the inside, but you can see it working just fine for these ponds in this particular soil, moisture, and climate conditions.
Thanks!
@@amillison Doesn't it also depend on the species of tree? Geoff Lawton recommends willow for dam walls in cold climates.
@@myronplatte8354 yes, that makes sense. I believe that the species in these ponds are small growing willow shrubs. I wouldn't recommend anything that was actually going to get big
Great and Very important Video. Educating People to the Natural way of the World that we as Humans can and Need to Learn from!!
Hey Andrew I have a question in places like the west where there's so much desert like Nevada how do we use ponds to help us out. Lake Mead is slowly evaporating and I would love to get to know how to help it
In a dry climate with high evaporation, open water storage is not so good. Check out Brad Lancaster's "Rainwater Harvesting for Drylands and Beyond" book for all the answers
In those areas it's important to have trees to cover the water and reduce evaporation. I'm sure there are also plants that live on the water surface which will help as well.
@@tesha199 The dry winds in the area make that nearly impossible. They can't help the lake directly, but in the hills around it they can incorporate swales with fast growing, drought resistant trees. Keep planting young trees under the old ones, then cut down the large trees and chip them in place. Wash, rinse, repeat. They get heavy rains in that area a few times a year. They should be cashing in on it, instead of letting it sink into deep aquifers.
Planting trees that has no floor, and hopefully with time you will archive it.
Look for scientists who will provide you with why and how no floor.
I am indigenous Fijian..
Consider that development has also put a big "rain coat" over land that used to catch water and recharge aquifers. Adding recharge wells to each roof system (like Andrew highlight in a video on urban India) and making public parks and landscape design catch and hold water to serve this function would help immensely.
Don't forget, Mead used to be and stay quite full. What's changed is how water interacts with the land... and there are a lot of people with demands on the supply...
in Fresno, CA they put in water reservoirs when they build new neighborhoods. It helps replenish the ground water supply.
Great video. I wish less people viewed beaver as a pest. Do you think we'll see a significant increase in beaver population over the next 100 years?
Hopefully, since beaver hats are no longer in vogue.
Wow, great video Andrew! Thanks for sharing. Love the editing and music. Great film :)
Thanks so much!
Do you have plans for making that 3d box you use with what looks like sand? for modeling? that just feels like a great project for my teens to use for geography projects, and oddly history projects, etc. Seriously love that box! also Love your vids!
I am an avid Auburn fan and horticulturist, so I appreciate your incorporation of college football into your video. War Eagle and Go Beavers.
Absolutely great
That is why our ancient kings build more and more ponds as passion in India
From ERODE
We need more beavers! All around the world
this explanation was excellent!!!!
we the people are the ones who have to do our bit to contribute good and positive things to this problem and minimize these damages
drink every time he says Beaver
Bald beaver
Thanks!
I so appreciate your generous contribution!! Thank you very much and I hope you are well :-)
Great idea 💚
Thanks Andrew! You have an amazing ability to communicate. Love your videos! Thanks so much for sharing!
I have a small stream that runs through my backyard. It was diverted there, and over the course of 50 or so years, has apparently gone from a soggy depression in a field, to a 6 foot plus deep ditch. Would building some artificial log dams help to keep erosion at bay? I'm currently researching slope stabilizing grasses, bushes and trees, as I'm working to remove the invasive bittersweet and multiflora rose which have been choking out the trees holding much of the bank together. Anyone have suggestions for native (to the northeast US) or non invasive things I could use?
you can use logs in the short term. native trees that grow near lakes and water will work in the long run
Beaver Dam Analogs.
@Subtle Nature we are in the Winnepesaukee River watershed. The property is sandwiched between Gunstock mountain and Lake Winnepesaukee. I'm pretty sure this stream comes off of the mountain somewhere and it ends up in one of the many small ponds before going into the Winnepesaukee River, then the Merrimack. It certainly picks up a lot of trash. I'm in there every other week taking the most random crap out of it. Found a (thankfully closed) bottle of chainsaw oil in there last week....
@Subtle Nature Right now there is a large stand of young poplar, plus some oaks, a few random pines and weirdly enough, apple trees. What do you recommend in terms of timeline for ripping out invasives/planting new natives? And do you have any suggestions on getting the damn bittersweet and rose roots to die? I don't want to use any herbicides, especially so close to the water, but they can grow back from even the tiniest part of the root. My technique so far has been to run around in the winter/spring with a pair of loppers, cutting any vine/thorn I see, and then pulling them out of the trees once they are dead and brittle in the fall. Keeps the tree damage to a minimum at least. But the stream runs along a 700' line, so it's taking a while, and I've been working on clearing out the thickets of crap.
Willows are amazing next to a moving water
Great Eco Engineer.
Really We have to act like Beavers...We should give more chance to Beavers through natural vegetation!🌱🌊
I'll share this video to all my water conservationist friends in India.
I told my wife I absolutely love beavers! She said “Beavers plural? You better mean beaver!” I said no dear. Different topic!
Contureing is a good practice too.Where it is done on large.scale inparticular,the impact on the soil is amazing.They stop erosion,directing water along slopes and funnelling it to branch out across slopes Ethiopia
Sorry,Ethiopia and Australia have started using this method and the difference can be visibly seen.
Same concept is used in Banaue Philippines. They made rice terraces that slowly flows the water down from the mountain.
Now parts of Americas, Africa, India, and Middle East, are using the same concept.