• machiabelly [she/her]
    ·
    edit-2
    2 years ago

    luv me a good chinahmpuh. also could this be how to create agriculture in wetlands? Like, instead of polders, levies and dykes we keep the water and just dig channels and make islands?

      • machiabelly [she/her]
        ·
        edit-2
        2 years ago

        Couldn't we dig man made lakes and replicate this? Go to a place with a high water table and dig down a bit? I guess evaporation might make it too water intensive. Either way there is lots of farming that uses flood irrigation but using sluices and weirs and things to keep a consistent water table in a man made wetland isn't something I've seen before. The cinampas specifically are hard to replicate exactly because they need a shallow depth and a consistent water table. If we took all the runoff from urban and suburban areas and used it to make wetland agriculture that be fucking rad. did some googling to see what people were doing with wetland agriculture, its not much but there is some stuff.

        Projects in malawi and zambia to integrate farming with multiple ecosystems for water conservation and biodiversity

        https://www.wetlandaction.org/wp-content/uploads/Wetland-Action-Functional-Landscape-Approach.pdf

        china doing neat things, plus a followup study I can't read

        http://www.intecol-10iwc.com/EN/HelpCenter/HelpInfo.aspx?nid=77

        https://xblk.ecnu.edu.cn/EN/10.3969/j.issn.1000-5641.201931009

        less interesting but still neat about using small wetlands to reduce nutrient polution, control flooding, and provide water. Including US initiatives to get farmers to adopt the practices

        https://www.nature.org/en-us/about-us/where-we-work/united-states/illinois/stories-in-illinois/constructed-wetlands-reduce-agricultural-runoff-study/https://www.ramsar.org/sites/default/files/documents/library/bn13_agriculture_e.pdf

        https://www.farmers.gov/blog/are-wetland-easements-right-you

        http://www.wetlands-initiative.org/growing-wetlands-for-clean-water

        • Tachanka [comrade/them]
          ·
          2 years ago

          interesting ideas! I will take a look at the links after work tomorrow if I remember.

          The cinampas specifically are hard to replicate exactly because they need a shallow depth and a consistent water table.

          unfortunately

          If we took all the runoff from urban and suburban areas and used it to make wetland agriculture that be fucking rad.

          yes (though I wonder if the pollution would be an issue)

          • machiabelly [she/her]
            ·
            2 years ago

            yes (though I wonder if the pollution would be an issue)

            that's probably true. It'd have to be just wetlands and not the agriculture then, still it'd be a really cool way to bake nature reserves and parks into the planning of cities. Making institutions or local governments responsible for their own runoff would be really cool. It reminds me of a video on the same channel you linked about a plan in the past to draw political boundaries around watersheds. here