How Trees Help Create the Fresh Water Supply

Produced by the 'A Tree a Day' campaign - a branch of Trees Are Awesome

Trees and forests play a key role in producing the planet’s fresh water supply, by both creating and attracting clouds, and by guiding rainwater into rivers, lakes and the underground water table. Restoring currently damaged land with tree planting is the most effective way to secure a continual supply of water for drinking, agriculture, and to support all life. Here are 4 major ways that trees manage the water cycle:

1. Trees Add Moisture to the Air and Create Clouds
Trees draw water up from their roots all the way to their leaves where it becomes water vapor and is exhaled into the air. At the same time, the trees leaves release friendly bacteria that trigger the airborne water vapor to cluster together, forming clouds. These clouds also attract higher clouds in the sky that would have otherwise passed over these regions, combining with them to bring additional rain to the forest. This process circulates water from deep underground, into the air, and back down to the earth.

2. Trees Also Slow Rainfall
Rain falls to the ground quickly. Without trees or other plants, it rapidly runs into the rivers taking topsoil with it, reducing an area’s fertility while increasing flooding, landslides and erosion. When rain falls on a forest, the leaves and needles of the trees slow the raindrops down dramatically, gently bringing the rain down to the forest floor.

3. Trees Help Soak the Water Into the Ground
The rainfall on the forest floor then soaks into the top layer of soil, which the trees have helped to make healthy and absorbent. The water captured by this spongy soil gradually filters down through channels created by the tree’s roots and soil organisms, into the underground waterways of the water table. From here gravity continues to draw the water through the earth until it emerges as a spring that feeds streams and rivers, or until it is drawn up from the ground through wells.

4. Trees Keep Rivers and Streams Cool and Protected
As the rivers and streams make their way to the sea, the shade provided by the surrounding trees keeps the water from evaporating too quickly, allowing the rivers to flow more abundantly, which enhances the value of the river to all surrounding life. The roots of the trees also hold the riverbanks together, reducing erosion and holding the integrity of the ecosystem in tact.

When It Comes to Fresh Water, Trees and Forests Are Our Greatest Ally

With freshwater for drinking and agriculture running out in places across the world, and droughts becoming more common each year, Trees Are Awesome sees large-scale tree planting as being the world’s most affordable, practical, and multi-benefit opportunity to effectively bring trillions of gallons of rainwater back into the freshwater system each year.

Tree planting options start at just 15¢ a tree, so you can help plant a tree every day of the year (365 trees!) for as little as $5 a month – or you can make a one time donation of any amount. By spreading the word about Trees Are Awesome to your friends and family, you can help this campaign reach millions of people, and together we can fund the planting of a trillion trees.

Thank you for your interest in tree planting!

Help spread the word by joining the Trees Are Awesome on Social Media:

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#treeplanting #trilliontrees #globalreforestation #generationrestoration #ecosystemrestoration #waterislife #freshwater #watersheds #permaculture

[katemiller]

Wow, her voice is so soothing.
Thanks for explaining this, makes sense 👍

[qurbanalihussaini]

The message that had two simple stages is really wonderful and I am very interested to take it as project of myself and accomplish it soon...

[BG-osym]

I have been in forests when the fog rolled in off the Pacific Ocean onto the coast of California and through the trees, heading eastward (since prevailing winds usually flow from west to east). The trees' leaves, branches and trunks caught the large water droplets, which constitute fog, collected them together, and CAUSED a good portion of the GENTLE RAIN that you referred to. I assure you, I had to don my raingear!

Thus, it is no surprise that Israel (also with a "Mediterranean" climate, such as much of California has) has long supported the planting of trees. I am not aware whether they have the same fog that California has (no aspersions on Cali politics!), but it makes sense to me that, even if there is less or no FOG, there is still assuredly WATER VAPOUR arriving onto the west coast of Israel (in other words, ALL of Israel : - ) ).
Trees, indeed all members of the Plant Kingdom, must have water and carbon dioxide to grow, and even to live. Therefore, it is quite reasonable to suppose that trees in Israel are acting in ways that will absorb as much water as possible from the air, especially given that they are planted in soil so dry that it was called "desert", before the Israelis turned it Green.

Yes, Trees!
No, arseonists!

[jamessang]

Do you have any studies that back your ideas? I'll be presenting ideas on how to recharge the Salinas Valley Basin Groundwater . The Board gives me 2 minutes.

[Korishoku]

Wonderful explanation and it makes perfect sense!

[RobDymott]

thanks, gave me some extra points to write about on my assessment