Tag / climate

by sheilasingapore

Newspaper Column #7: Have Greens, Will Rain! – Part IV

As it appeared in the Sunday Standard, Botswana on  Sunday December 2, 2012 edition.

All is not what it seems

So was your answer similar to or different from that of your friends?

In last week’s discussion (Part III) we saw gradual increases in rainfall levels rose levels of vegetation as well.   Vegetation begins to grow in sustained ways.

Still, this is linear thinking.  Rainfalls cause vegetation.  As farmers, most of us know this.

However, the key to understanding persistent or stubborn issues such as water shortages is when we see causality as a cycle (Part II).  At this point, the thinking shifts from linear to being systemic.

So, I left you with a question to complete the process of thinking.

Should levels of vegetation (along with surface waters) increase, what do you think will be their consequence on rainfall levels?

Would we see declining levels of rainfall? Or could such levels increase (gradually) over time?  Which types of vegetation would encourage rainfalls?  And which ones don’t?

Check if you got the following answer.  I am sure you did!

This is a story over time.

As more plants consume water and we see vegetation grow over time, we will begin to see a genre of plants that are broadleaved.  As more of such plants thrive on the lands, such plants transpire water vapour into the atmosphere.

The more persistent are those levels, the higher the likelihood of levels of atmospheric moisture rising across the region.  However, one plant, one hose-pipe or one dam does not make that change happen.  Instead one would have to imagine, miles and miles of such vegetation happening across the region.

20121202Picture1

What do you think will be the result?

The higher atmospheric moisture now begins to encourage precipitation and eventually rainfall.  Hence my title here, “have greens will rain”.

Positive Cycle

For rains to fall from above, it needs to figure a way to move from the earth’s surface to the atmosphere.  Surface waters and vegetation when they come together facilitates that process.  We as humans are parts of that instrument.  The result will be more levels of rainfall over time.

Additionally, as more plants grow out their life cycle, at the end of their life, they decompose and add nutrients to the earth.  This is key in helping the soil transform gradually from sandy to become loamy.  The land learns to become greener.  Potentially, we could even see the desert turn on its back.

As the supply of available water increases, cost of using it, will usually come down.  The reverse (Part I) is also true.  When the supply diminishes, the cost goes up.  Unfortunately, we will not be able to push these prices down, till we figure a way to increase its supply.  The answer can start in our backyards.  Literally, for everyone.

So, increased levels of vegetation, raises the levels of rainfall.  That’s your cycle (see Picture 2)!  In this case we refer to them as virtuous cycles.

20121202Picture2

The reverse is also true.

Negative Cycle

When plants do not consume water (see also Picture 2), over time, they gradually learn to do the opposite of all of the above, as they fight or adapt to stay alive.

These adaptations may include developing layers of wax or hairs on the leaves and stems or shrinking the size of its leaves to become thorns.  This is intended to prevent water losses so as to keep the water for themselves. This runs contrary to the nature of water, which is to flow.  These plants have adapted the inherent nature of water for its survival.  It does so at the expense of the system (or we say it has become individualistic).

The ultimate drought-resistant plant is cactus that grows in the hearts of most deserts of the world.  Think what you see when you crack a cactus open.  We see trapped water.  The little water it takes in, it keeps it for itself.

When they begin to appear in our environment, it suggests that the soil on the surface has long lost its ability (to build loamy soil) to support sustained vegetation.  Such variety of plants begin to thrive but causes rainfall levels to decline.  This is since, they do not transpire.  This causes the land to become even more dry which in turn encourages more of such plants.  This latter view is often hidden from us until we surface this thinking as a cycle.  Unlike earlier, these cycles are now becoming vicious in nature.

These vicious cycles do two things.

If we are not watching it, these cycles cause the issue to recur.  They bring the problem back defying our efforts to correct it and do so with greater intensity in each iteration of the cycle.  They typically throw our action plans off their courses.  We see project implementation efforts as if they were failing.

These are what we see on the surface.  That is the self-seeking nature of these cycles of causality.  All is not what it seems.

Winning the Cycle

So how would we deal with such systemic directions and expect to win it?

To take care of the problem of water shortages, we would then have to take care of the water cycle.  The whole cycle.  Not parts of it.

What we saw here today is while your household may start greening your backyard, the combined effect of doing this collectively can be very powerful for a region on both the causes and consequences of rainfall for the region.  This answer is not for just one country.  We need to figure a way not to give up or be afraid to reach this out there in the region to everyone.  I am sure you see that!

Given these, what would you say are the implications of some typical action plans that we make (and this happens to all countries), on such a cycle?  Such as:

  • Recommending the growth of drought-resistant varieties of crops?
  • Producing livestock that depend on greens?
  • Production of brews?
  • Drilling or deepening of boreholes?  Dam construction?

In each instance, would you see the rainfall levels increase or could it decrease over time?  Would water table levels increase or decrease? What would be their consequences on growing of crops, on food security, growing of raw materials and in diversifying and developing a manufacturing base in the country?  On employment?

Well, I am sure; you and your friends will figure these questions out!

This and their impact on the economy will be the subject of discussion next week in the final part of this series of the column on “Have Greens, Will Rain!”  Till then have a lovely week discovering and learning!

This is the 4th segment of a five part series of this article.  Each part will build on the earlier article to an eventual conclusion.  We invite you to participate in the column as well as do your ‘own homework’ – searching and discussing the issue to build your own conclusions.  Next month, we look at HIV, its causes and its effects.

Ms Sheila Damodaran, an international strategy development consultant for national planning commissions welcomes comments at sheila@loatwork.com.  For upcoming programmes, refer to www.loatwork.com/Senior_Leadership_Introduction.html.

by sheilasingapore

Newspaper Column #5: Have Greens, Will Rain! – Part II

As it appeared in the Sunday Standard, Botswana on  Sunday Nov 18, 2012 edition

Cycle?  What cycle?

In Part I last week, we were concluding that the water tables in the region were possibly declining.

This series of articles in November is a dedication to this subject.

It explores issues of primary industry (raw material) development to water consumption choices and their effects on families, the nature and the economies.  In short, it underscores the story of diversification of any economy.

All of this will be discussed as we take a trip around the water cycle in this series of the column.

Water tables even if they are underground are part of the water cycle, originating when part of the rain that falls on the Earth’s surface sinks through the soil and seeps downward to become groundwater.  Groundwater will eventually flow out of the ground, discharging into streams, springs, lakes, or the oceans, to complete the water cycle.  (See Picture 1)

When asked how high is the water table and how it has behaved over time, most of us picked Pattern C (refer to last week’s article.  See also red line here in Picture 1 below (refer to ‘Long-term depletion’, the line marked AB)).

That it has shown a general downward trend.

Such long-term trends become evident when we study past data spanning several decades.  They usually escape the best of us when our attention is on what’s happening today (refer to the lines CD).

Here’s the implication of seeing such patterns over time.

The long-term depletion worsens the position of each short-term variation.  We now have a persistent issue but is working its way to the levels of a crisis in the long-term.   Such issues usually resist change and defy our best planning and implementation efforts beyond the short-term.  It is a costly management process.

And if we imagined the water cycle, it would have begun to show signs of weakening intensity.  The local weather conditions could see the likes of droughts or even floods.  Of course, these conditions would reverse with long-term augmentation or increase.

In systemic thinking, we pay attention to these long-term positions rather than the short-term.  This is because of the following reasons:

  • It is these long-term positions that determine what happens in our day-to-day realities.  Ignore them and the realities get worse.  These will help us become more realistic in our planning and implementation efforts;
  • The reasons that cause the long-term position are often very different from those that cause short-term positions; and so,
  • When we find those reasons, they will present areas that will allow us to turn the situation around.  For good.  It saves our resources.

Boiled Frog

To get there, it helps that the country as a whole learns to see and understand such patterns together, with the disciplined eye of a hawk.  All of the time.  Should we not, then like a boiled frog, it would lead us to deeper crisis unawares.  We become the boiled frog instead.

And I left you with a question.  How do we know for sure, that the water tables are indeed declining?

I am sure you have figured this one out.

You might say, well it is when we notice farmers dig their bore-holes deeper.  And they do so, from time to time.  You are right!  This is an indication that the water table for his side of the land is behaving more like Pattern C and as the pattern continues to unfold the land becomes drier (a crisis is looming).

Does anyone know how deep some of the bore-holes in the Kgalagadi and possibly Namibia are?  They did not start that way.  They became that way.

The reverse, however, is true for the forests in the Amazon.  Both are happening at the same time each with its deliberate direction and goal.  This is what we, otherwise, call reality.

Uncovering the Cycle

However, most management concepts did not clarify that our straight-line goals are not designed to fight trends such as AB.  They are designed to fight the shorter-term trends like CD.  The latter, is an important view of the military and the fire-fighters.  Crisis management.

Now, if the long-term position is true, i.e. if the water tables are going down, then we have a circular causality in our hands.   This requires very different management tact.  We would need to uncover the elements of the cycle to address these long-term positions.

Therefore, rather than ask what we should do about it, the next question here is what is causing the water tables to go down?

Meaning to say, if we say the water table is going down (in the long term), what is causing that?  And in turn what is causing the cause?  And so on.  Think cycle.  Get the idea?

And remember, even when you think you have got to the “root cause”, in this work, we say, even the root cause has a cause.  Nothing exists without a reason.   It is whether we see the reason or we don’t.  In short, the 5Whys methodology does not work for persistent problems.

Do not forget to also go the other way in the cycle!  Should the water table go down, there are consequences.  Yes?  And then what are the consequences of the consequences?

Here’s a tip.  Should the circle not close in itself, then it is not the ‘right’ circle of causality.  Start again but with a different set of reasons.  This is a trick we use, before we understand more deeply the tools of this work.

Go ahead and try it!  There is something inherent about wanting to see vicious circles, as hard as it feels like to get there; it captures our curiosity and intrigue.

So, … what is the circle of causality that is causing the water table to go down?

Well, I am sure, you and your friends will keep trying and enjoy getting there!  This will be the subject of discussion next week in Part III of this series of the column on “Have Greens, Will Rain!”

Till then have a lovely week discovering and learning!

This is the 2nd of a five part series of this article.  Each part will build on the earlier article to an eventual conclusion.  We invite you to participate in the column as well as do your ‘own homework’ – searching and discussing the issue to build your own conclusions.

Ms Sheila Damodaran, an international Strategy Development Consultant in the use of systemic thinking for managing persistent issues at regional and sectoral levels, welcomes comments at sheila@loatwork.com.  For upcoming programmes, refer to www.loatwork.com/Senior_Leadership_Introduction.html.