article in Nature Water on water for climate stabilization

[Erica Gies]

Hi all,

I've published a Comment today in Nature Water with Kongjian Yu, Mr. Sponge City, as I've dubbed him, and Dr. Warren Wood. Here's what I wrote about it on LinkedIn:

Mr. Sponge City, Kongjian Yu, makes cities porous to soften floods & droughts. I told his story, part of the global hashtag#slowwater movement, in my book "Water Always Wins." Now we & Dr. Warren Wood have a Comment in Nature Water on how to help stabilize the climate: a Sponge Planet. Humans have degraded 75 percent of Earth's land, destabilizing the
#water cycle, amplifying effects of excess CO2. The water cycle is a key climate stabilizer but overlooked by policymakers. Restoring wetlands, floodplains, forests, recreating a Sponge Planet, will help.

Linked In wouldn't let me put a link, but here it is in case anyone wants to share it elsewhere: https://rdcu.be/d5ouG

Linked In did allow me to upload the PDF, however, so you can find that on my profile in LinkedIn.

Happy new year!

Erica

Erica Gies

Author of Water Always Wins: https://slowwater.world/

Independent journalist

National Geographic Explorer

Rachel Carson Award for Excellence in Environmental Journalism

URI Metcalf Institute's Leeson Lecturer

www.ericagies.com

Living in and acknowledging the homelands of the Songees and Esquimalt nations of the Coast Salish peoples (aka Victoria, BC) and the Yelamu, a local tribe of the Ramaytush Ohlone peoples (aka San Francisco).

[Climate Water]

I like the term Sponge Planet idea that is described in the paper. Did you come up with that phrase?

I like the idea described in your paper that Sponge Planet is composed of local slow water projects.

alpha

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[Peter Paap]

Hi Erica,

Indeed, a Sponge planet would be one I think we can all thrive in. Hence my plea to concentrate our efforts for ecosystem restoration in watersheds and marine conservation areas, preferably even promoting a spatial reshufling of administrative borders along these lines. And a phased approach starting with the ecological network. 

Cheers,

Peter

Verzonden vanaf Outlook voor Android

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From: ecorestorat...@googlegroups.com <ecorestorat...@googlegroups.com> on behalf of Climate Water <climatewa...@gmail.com>
Sent: Monday, January 6, 2025 2:26:15 PM
To: Erica Gies <er...@2141.net>
Cc: EcoRestoration Alliance <ecorestorat...@googlegroups.com>
Subject: Re: [ERA] article in Nature Water on water for climate stabilization

 

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[Erica Gies]

Hi Alpha,

Sponge Planet is Kongjian's coinage, as was (to my knowledge) Sponge Cities. I profiled his Sponge Cities idea in Scientific American in 2018 (https://ericagies.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/04/Sponge-City-Revolution-Gies-SciAm.pdf), and when I visited him in Beijing then, he showed me maps he had of China marking all kinds of ecological patterns, as well as human civilization patterns, and he told me he was thinking country-wide, and continent-wide. "It's time to expand the scale," he said. 

Expanding the scale is something I hear from nearly all my sources for "Water Always Wins." Small Slow Water local projects, many thousands of them, is locally empowering. And every little bit helps, and the effect is cumulative. So when Kongjian asked me to be a coauthor for this Comment (and I ended up rewriting it because I write for Nature and know what they would agree to publish), I called them Slow Water projects, as I did in my book.

Best,

Erica 

Erica Gies

Author of Water Always Wins: https://slowwater.world/

Independent journalist

National Geographic Explorer

Rachel Carson Award for Excellence in Environmental Journalism

URI Metcalf Institute's Leeson Lecturer

www.ericagies.com

Living in and acknowledging the homelands of the Songees and Esquimalt nations of the Coast Salish peoples (aka Victoria, BC) and the Yelamu, a local tribe of the Ramaytush Ohlone peoples (aka San Francisco).