What's needed for land to soak up rain?
Multiple factors that influence flooding and drought. Online workshop, two options of dates. September 16, 2024, 6 PM EDT OR: September 19 at 10:30AM EDT
Enroll in Course
Choose from two options to join our international discussion:
Monday, September 16, at 6 pm EDT, (USA, New York). See this in your time zone
OR: Thursday, September 19 at 10:30 am EDT See this in your time zone
What makes rain soak in, in some places, and not in others?
Why does flooding happen after one rainstorm and not another?
Join our international live discussion. We will look at our own places from around the world as examples, as we consider exactly what happens when rain, melting snow, or raging floodwaters move through the land. We will discuss which factors we can change, and which we can't, and then go deep on strategies for change, focusing in on one or two case studies from among our participants.
This online discussion will build off of the information in Didi Pershouse's recent article on the Wisdom Underground. You can access the article for free here.
Our workshops often focus on the soil sponge--which we believe is foundational infrastructure that makes life on land possible. However, there are many additional factors that also influence how much, and how quickly, water soaks into the ground (providing numerous benefits)—versus running off and creating both flooding and drought. If we want to take a living systems view of a place, we need to consider all these factors when making decisions about how to manage land in our yards, farms, ranches, neighborhoods, and whole regions.
We are offering this workshop by donation. Please choose an amount that makes sense for you (or choose FREE). You can also donate directly (which avoids up to 20% in processing fees) by Venmo (DidiPershouse) or PayPal or check.
Your Instructor
Didi Pershouse is well known as an innovative international educator both in-person and online. She is the founder of the Land and Leadership Initiative. Her facilitator's guide Understanding Soil Health and Watershed Function, is used in over 60 countries.
She became deeply involved in the intersection of food systems and health systems while providing rural health care for two decades at The Center for Sustainable Medicine, and wrote The Ecology of Care: Medicine, Agriculture, Money, and the Quiet Power of Human and Microbial Communities.
Currently she is writing a field training manual for the UN-FAO Farmer Field School Program and the Andhra Pradesh Community Managed Natural Farming Initiative in India, involving over 800,000 smallholder farmers. She was a contributing author to The Climate Emergency: How Africa Can Survive and Thrive; Climate Change and Creation Care; and Health in the Anthropocene. She was one of five speakers at the United Nations-FAO World Soil Day in 2017.
She serves on the Planning Commission for her town, is a board supervisor for the White River Natural Resources Conservation District, and is on the board of directors of the Soil Carbon Coalition and the Vermont Healthy Soils Coalition. While serving on the state appointed Payment for Ecosystem Services and Soil Health Working Group, she helped to reorient the program back to its public roots. She led a successful effort to conserve the Zebedee Headwaters Wetland while serving as a Vermont Conservation Commissioner.