For those of you, most of you were here
last night and heard Michael discussing
the importance of the new water paradigm
and today I think he's going to get into
more of the science of it, is that right?
And he's saying yes. It's fascinating
and it's it's not that it's
radically new hydrology it's just
that it's hydrology that we do not, in
the general public, know about and we do
not put into practice. So new water
paradigm means behavior as well as
knowledge and so michael is visiting us
from Slovakia where he's accomplished
great things with with water catchments,
rainfall harvesting, and such
methods of holding the rainfall where it
falls for the for the benefit of land
and climate. Michael. (applause)
Let's speak deeply about this new water
paradigm. Thank you Walter for the great speech
about the relationship between water, hydrology,
climate, ecosystem, and soil biology.
13
00:01:39,340 --> 00:01:44,459
I think we need to deeply 
understand about how it works,
the system of water, because we know we 
learn at school that
water, in water there's flowing energy
and other life. And how it works
together with carbon, with solar
energy on the planet Earth. Because we know
that without water there's no life here.
And we forgot that. And if you are
looking at the mainstream debate on
climate and really, people don't
speak about water. Because this climate
numerical model was established on the
principle that water in the atmosphere is
constant. And it's not true. Let's
speak a little bit about we
have decided on this link between water
and climate systems. We had in Slovakia a huge
massive conflict about this orientation
about water policy after the Velvet Revolution,
and my group was established (to work on) the
the conflict about building a water reservoir
for my town, and in one region, the
east part of Slovakia. And we needed to,
in this time, find a lot of
arguments why it is not a good solution
to build a water dam.
We started to understand deeply, about how
the ecosystem works, and
how to use the ecosystem to work for water.
From this analyzing, especially for 19
years last century, we analyzed a lot of
data for the whole waters system, the rainfall,
space distribution in the region,
and monthly distribution, and brought how
it works, the hydrology of small streams,
big streams in Slovakia, and we calculated
the whole balance. And I was, because I was
a water main engineer too, I was shocked
about this knowledge, because in
processing, we find that in time,
because we analyzed only free data,
in Slovakia in the communist era it was
free data but on until
1970, but after 1970
we need to pay for the hydrologic data,
and in the 70-year hydrologic database
we find, for example, the time and space
of rainfall is changed in Slovakia.
Above is precipitation in mountains and
the precipitation is growing, but in lowlands,
especially agricultural or urban zones is
decreasing. And we were in shock about this
knowledge, and after we deeply understand
about time & distribution of rainfall, and
42
00:04:50,870 --> 00:04:55,010
we find this relationship. We know that
rainfall is constant
monthly precipitation, but if you
transform forest,
rainforest, to agricultural
landscape, and from agricultural
landscape to urban landscape it starts to
change like this. It's growing in one period
of a year, it's massively growing in 
precipitation and after decreasing. And we
find this knowledge through time,
to 1970, which means it is old data. Hydrologic
experts and climatological experts in Slovakia
don't know about that. Because they do a
lot of research, but only statistic data and
statistic data about how many
extreme events exist and long and how
much, for example, discharge in extreme
events will go into small streams. And
not about processes, how it changes,
this processing, and this is very
important, what I need to speak to you about,
because this is real trouble everywhere,
not just in Slovakia. I found some
very interesting research from one guy
from Australia who did research on the
Caucasus region, and in a period of
10,000 years he found the same relationship
between the change in time and space
distribution of rain and temperature in
the Caucasus. There's a
growing extremity, over the period of
10,000 years, because we know there's an old
culture here and there's a lot of change
of landscape from how it was
before, in the
19th century it was 10,000 years and
8,000 years before Christ. This is one
very important point which we need
to know. And look at the
distribution of clouds and rain in
Slovakia, it's raining especially in mountains.
Yesterday we spoke about heat islands
how they work in the agro-urban zones,
65
00:07:08,430 --> 00:07:17,330
production of sensible heat, and to moderate
the climate system, clouds in the sky. And if
you are looking at American territory,
look at heat islands in the U.S., and
yesterday I spoke about this relationship
between S. Dakota which I know a little bit about,
and Superstorm Sandy. Look at how
heat islands are growing in U.S. territory.
And if we're thinking about water's relationships
with all energy, which is from the sun,
is for our life.
If we dry up the lands, after that
the energy which we need for our life is
flowing to the atmosphere. It is lost.
Heat islands are created. If you have a lot of
trouble here, with tornadoes, superstorms, 
and flash floods, you see the results
of the desertification of the U.S. If you're
looking just now at California, it's
the same problem. We know that in the
19th century it was dramatically
destroyed and (there was a)
changeover from wetlands to agricultural
and after that was built massive, huge paved
sealed, asphalted urban zones, and a lot of 
water was lost from small water cycle. We know
that globally we have 51,000,000SQ KM of 
desert zones and dry land. We know that before
it was green. Which means, what happened? And
I think it is about this trouble, this
loss of water from small water cycle. This is
about our problem. In my country, experts and
scientists are starting to increase this new
ideology where the small water cycle doesn't
exist on the continent. It's a real, published
scientific paper. I was shocked about that.
We need to deeply understand
about this principle, how it works. Look
above about this principal 
is this complex graph about this..
Look, here's a long timeline, and the
infiltration and evapotranspiration and
the blue spiral is about balance of water
in the small water cycle and it gets smaller
and smaller which mean, in my country is
lost annually from small water cycle only 1 percent,
but annually. 2 years, 2 percent, 3 years,
3 percent, 10 years, 10 percent, and after 100 years,
it is totally collapsed. And we know just
now about reality because if there's a loss of
water in the small water cycle we start to open
the season for extreme weather.
Because the contribution of energy to
the atmosphere, which is lost from the ecosystem,
is starting to make huge massive 
chaos in the atmosphere. Together here
in time is this the decreasing of
precipitation, which means is it a
prolonged periods without rain and
aftermath is massive rain. In the end, it's
totally dry. In Slovakia we will be dependent 
only on water from big water cycle. This is a
massive frontal system which creates a
totally extremely dangerous situation
for our lives. It is bad news. It is
very bad news, because in the end is collapse.
It is not only an environmental fashion trend. 
It is economic, social, and cultural. It is
a holistic approach. and look, it's bad news. 
We know that the relationship in the debate
about climate mostly, we said yesterday,
is about icebergs and sea-level rise.
But we forgot about the desertification
process of continents, because the small
water cycle everywhere is
starting to recede because today it's
rain, tomorrow it's vapor and returned.
it creates clouds, and returned to water.
It's maybe better to speak about a
not a small water cycle but short water cycle
because the time is very fast, for
example daily. Because we know that in the 
rainforest, in the  
morning it's vapor water in the atmosphere,
and after lunch it returns and it's very
interesting. This is a relationship
between the decrease of the balance of
water, fresh water to the ecosystem, and
increasing sea-level rise.
Let's speak about water cycle energy flows and
climate change. Yesterday I spoke
deeply about this relationship, how it works
with energy, because if we 
dry up the water for example, from Boston
area, and after that it is a lot of water
lost from the system and we produce a lot of
heat. Adam, at the start of the conference,
mentioned these differences in temperature
between asphalt and grass. It's the same
principle. We have not this asphalt but
also a lot of desert zones,
globally. And before that they were green zones.
This is a picture, we know it from yesterday,
but it is about these microstructures.
some ecosystems have a 
good condition of water, and then the 
temperature is twenty degrees maximum.
Here if you dry up the ecosystem,
temperatures hit 40 degrees. Twice as much.
very simple to understand. It's not about
co2, this is an energy system.
How it works is
heat island. This is a small island in the
Mediterranean Sea, Cyprus. In Cyprus, the
water system is collapsed.
historically there were built 108 water
reservoirs for the water industry, for
irrigation, for agriculture, water supply
for communities and for industry, and just now
it is, after 30 years, precipitation is
decreasing more. It's 15 percent,
it's been a period of 30 years with a decrease
of 15 percent. this 15% means
660 million cubic meters less water. 
After that the company and government decided
to build desalination companies. A
lot of money annually from a small country
flowing to only this company 100
million euros for desalination of water.
Five years ago it was in total collapse
because there was no water, no fresh water,
and by ship they transported to Cyprus from
Greece fresh water. And look above
it's a heat island because it's a problem if we
dry up lands we start to degrade the system.
The heat island makes a barrier (against the)
flowing of clouds to the inside of the
territory. And after that it rains less and
less. If you look at the special
urban zone, in Cyprus, everywhere, Nicosia,
Ayia Napa, and different tourist zones,
all are on the system of drying up water from
urban zones. Every drop of water is lost from
the ecosystem, a dangerous situation. This
one above is historically about Christopher
Columbus's message about the daily system 
of rain,
and you can read about that. Because the
islands, natural island, daily are
producing water and after it's returned to
the island. It’s small water cycle. It
doesn't matter if it's a small island or big
island like Australia. We can go to
recovery of the climate. You know that this
is bad news this degradation, and this
decreasing of systems, I have 4 minutes but I'll
be fast. Look if we know about that and
we are just now here and we are starting
to increase filtration of rainwater to soil,
after that it's water vapor to the atmosphere, 
creating clouds, and returns again to the
system. Which mean it is starting to restore
a balance of the water budget, of water in
the small water cycle, and after that is a
decrease of extremity and we're saying
it's starting to create more rainfall
but soft rainfall. This is important.
Yesterday I gave info about this book, but
3 main messages from The New Water Paradigm (NWP).
It's the old water paradigm (OWP) to protect surface
water as the main source/reserve of water.
the new water paradigm says to protect rain
water as the main reserve of water. Second,
soil sealing has minimal influence on
climate change (OWP). NWP: 
soil sealing has important
influence on climate change. And next
paragraph: water experts are responsible
for water catchment management, but it's
community, in the NWP. This is important.
I will finish now. It's a massive
conservation of rainwater,
starting many positive influences
for water balance, hydrology,
biodiversity, for climate stability for
economy, for society for culture, for
everything. It's a very simple solution
And its solution which is possible to start
very quickly everywhere. Just now I prepared an
animation about how this system works.
If we are just now, for
example, in Australia, we have in coastal
zone in east side. Look at how it
works, this principal of new water paradigm,
about restoration of ecosystem.
Water which is vapor from sea, clouds which
are flowing close to coastal
zones and create rain. because inside it's a
huge massive heat island. it blocks and stops
the clouds flowing inside. And if we start
to make this small depression
harvesting ecosystem and water-holding
which start to harvest rainwater
into the system, after that 
a lot of water harvest to the small
ecosystem and to water vapor to the atmosphere,
and condensate and return again.
After that is a connection between small
and big water cycles. Very simple. If we are
for example in Australia starting from
east zone to west zone, annually for example
10 kilometer to harvest more water
because it is the system working on
the NWP to absorb and pump water to the
small water cycle. Because we need to
know that water vapor is good. Because it's a
climate system. And it's good because it's
a producer of the greenhouse effect, and the
greenhouse effect is a stable system for the
whole planet Earth. After that are
created good conditions for healthy
stable ecosystems everywhere. Thank you
again and I'm happy to be here. (applause)
