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livingontheland - Re: [Livingontheland] Groundwater Depletion Raises Likelihood ofGlobalFood Crises

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Subject: Healthy soil and sustainable growing

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Chronological Thread  
  • From: "John D'hondt" <dhondt@eircom.net>
  • To: "Healthy soil and sustainable growing" <livingontheland@lists.ibiblio.org>
  • Subject: Re: [Livingontheland] Groundwater Depletion Raises Likelihood ofGlobalFood Crises
  • Date: Fri, 1 Oct 2010 21:46:50 +0100




Hi John,

I guess lack of water is one problem you don’t have in Ireland. Rather the opposite? In arid regions, like in the South of Portugal, everything depends on water. At least the government tries to regulate; we have to register every deep well with a pump of 5 PS or more. Still the groundwater level keeps on falling and people have to drill deeper to get to any water. Many of the old wells with a depth of 15 to 20 meters have run dry. During a dry summer, even some deep wells of 100 meter run dry.

Dieter

Your ideas about Ireland are mostly right Dieter but there are times when it does not rain for a month or longer and then we have problems too. Many trees and in fact most plants here have shallow root systems and this makes much sense in normal times to protect them from drowning. When it does go dry then there is a problem. I have seen trees die in summer from lack of water on a few occasions even when shallow wells at 2-3 meter debt where still flowing..
And our gardens have no facilities for irrigation since this would only be needed once in two or three years. Green houses and poly tunnels get water but nothing else.
john





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