Agriculture is directly and intimately tied to water resources and a large amount of this nation's water supply is used intensively to irrigate cropland. Food, produced through various agricultural methods (conventional, organic, biodynamic, regenerative, etc.), is one of the three basic requirements for human life. Water is also a basic requirement for life and this brings us to the discussion of appropriate water management practices and the tie in to agriculture. There is a direct connection between water and food! Our society needs both to function. As a civil engineer, I cannot express enough the dire long term consequences that some of our current infrastructure systems and land management practices have had and will continue to have on our future.

Center pivot irrigation pulls drinkable water from ever dwindling groundwater reservoirs.

The truth is that we have no way to fully encapsulate the complexity of our natural world and all its processes. Think about the issue of climate change and the polarizing affect this has on our society. We may never reach a public consensus. But we must be able to understand on a basic level our impacts on natural systems and the services that natural systems provide for a given region. When we engineer public infrastructure systems, we make assumptions (based on scientific evidence) to simplify the design process in an effort to accurately predict the performance of a given system. This means that we isolate our system and its components, and design within a closed system. Nature in this way is treated as a wildcard, an unnecessary risk. The resulting outcome, over the last several centuries in the U.S., are various forms of environmental degradation. There are however examples and first hand knowledge of ecologically integrated systems and land management methods that can regenerate and work with natural systems while still providing function and utility for our needs. In most cases, stopping and reversing environmental degradation will actually provide better long term health and safety for all involved.

In general, the stormwater management principles that are employed in most of the U.S. involve collecting and conveying runoff from precipitation or rainwater into the nearest waterway. For certain applications this makes sense (for protecting buildings and critical infrastructure from drainage/foundation issues), but when this concept is used ubiquitously across all landscapes we are essentially bleeding our continent dry on a large scale. Combine that with drawing vast quantities of water from groundwater sources and large aquifers, and neglecting to recharge the ground with the amount of water that we take out. Instead of stewarding water, we convey contaminated water (fertilizers, petroleum and pharmaceutical products, etc.) to surface waters which flow out to the gulfs, bays, and eventually oceans. This is very unfortunate because the simple solution in most cases is to infiltrate water into the soil where it will find its way to the water table or gets taken up by plants and native vegetation. Enter the connection between water and food.

A recent news article provides an interesting solution to the drought conditions in Western states. This solution would rob other ecosystems of their resources in order to feed another's that is being poorly managed. Are there other solutions to this problem? Could we change what we grew in these locations and how we grew them? Could we regenerate these degraded landscapes through regenerative earthworks, native tree/shrub buffers and plantings, local ecosystem restoration, and ecologically integrated farming techniques and infrastructure? And could we justify the expenditures of such regeneration projects by giving an economic value to the natural systems at play?

As a first hand example, our farm and gardens (located in northern Virginia) do not require any irrigation (even during drought) to produce food for my family and friends. We rely solely on rainwater. A temperate region receives an annual amount of precipitation second or third only to regions of tropical rainforests or the Pacific northwest. For my gardens I employ various stormwater infiltration techniques allowing for zero irrigation and as an added benefit, the water that is captured does not contribute to erosion and excessive flooding that is commonly caused by over development in the area. In addition and perhaps most importantly, I have adapted my farming crops and methods to the landscape by integrating perennial fruits, nuts and root vegetables with some staple annual greens and grains. In other words, I do not force a system to do what it does not want to do, instead I observe the landscape, and provide it with what it needs to produce for my community's needs. This same thought process could translate to community scale public infrastructure projects.

Irrigation lines for the garden fed by rainwater.

Even in a dry climate this basic concept could work if and only if we were not purposefully trying to prevent the agricultural landscape from functioning as a natural system. We must begin to see natural systems as valuable resources and not an unnecessary risk.