About
Rainfall to Groundwater is a (mostly) online community learning & collaboration effort by Verna Jigour, PhD – TBD
Vision
Native plant associations and their corresponding soil ecosystems have sustainably established throughout formerly degraded catchments and humans have incorporated their ecohydrological economics.
Groundwater is sustained through its timeless, evolutionary connection to global and regional hydrologic cycling (Budyko 1986).
Cold baseflows supporting salmonid ecosystems and vernal pools are restored to formerly inhospitable regions of California.
Humans also benefit from expanded groundwater supplies, including long-term cleansing of groundwater through restored connections to clean upstream sources. Hydrostatic pressure from new upstream groundwater sources offers the best hope of a counter-force to historic groundwater subsidence.
The most novel part of the vision is that, starting with California, watersheds aka catchments historically degraded to nonnative annual grasslands are restored to native cover types, potentially along with other permacultural land covers that capture rainfall where it lands, routing it to groundwater.
The holistic vision is that corollary expansion of riparian zones and floodplains complements the detention functions offered by uplands, for overall reduction in flooding and seawater intrusion, along with additional water available for replenishment of aquifers we depend on.
History of Rainfall to Groundwater
About Verna Jigour, PhD & Evolution of Rainfall to Groundwater
Watershed Restoration for Baseflow Augmentation
Verna M. Jigour (2008-11) PhD Dissertation Abstract
Citation
Budyko, M. I. 1986. The evolution of the biosphere – translated from the Russian by M.I.
Budyko, S.F. Lemeshko and V.G. Yanuta. D. Reidel Publishing Company, Division of
Kluwer, Dordrecht/ Boston.