Madera County and the San Joaquin Valley serve as a case study to implement a more holistic water and land use strategy
From the Environmental Defense Fund:
A new article about articles assessed by experts in Limits in the water Explained how multi -fitic land conversions can serve as an innovative strategy in order to react to water shortages and at the same time promote healthier rural communities and ecosystems.
The article, “Improvement of water security and the landscape through multi-fitic land use”, describes, as in the world of watercarce regions of the world, the multi-civilization land conversion offers a promising alternative to business-as-USAL approaches, which are mainly concentrated on idle. Leaving the country to more negative effects, including the damage to rural economies and the deterioration in inequalities, the increase in dust pollution and the deterioration in air quality, the introduction of pests and weeds and the humiliating soil.
In contrast, MultiBenfitfit -Landsmüben is a proactive alternative that includes several advantages as the basis for integrative planning from the start. If it is deliberately designed and implemented, MultiBenfitfit landscapes can contribute to landscapes that support a mosaic of productive agriculture, healthy communities and successful habitat. The potential multi -fit land revaluation projects include the transition to regenerative agriculture, the recharging of the groundwater, the restoration of habitats and the restoration of floodplain, solar panel and outdoor leisure rooms.
“Multifitfit land goals can help to catalyze a strong paradigm shift of the ad-hoc land and water management to a more holistic approach to catalyzes, which ultimately enables the producers and communities to adapt more effectively to environmental prints such as climate change and unexpected disorders such as economic shocks” Gopal PennyPhD, senior author and senior scientist, climatic water systems in environmental defense funds. “Although the process is not easy, fast or cheap, the discouraging and possibly bad consequences of business and land practices demand that we accept innovative solutions.”
Combating three challenges with water land management
In their article, Penny and his 14 co-authors from 11 institutions describe how multi-land repurposes can be designed in such a way that they can manage three major challenges at the Nexus of Water and Land Management:
- A challenge for natural resources in connection with water shortages, environmental deterioration and injustice of the environment. Multibenfit landing projects can improve air and water quality, expand and improve and/or create new leisure opportunities and at the same time offer the producer who voluntarily participate.
- A governance challenge Combined with a lack of strategic coordination and inequalities in decision -making. In agricultural landscapes with traces of water, the growing demand for shrinking water supply often contributes to a competitive landscape in which individualistic decisions are prioritized, and hinders the collective agreement on sustainable, fair solutions for the larger community. Multifitfit -land reunification can be structured in order to support more collaborative and fairer decision -making through broad, coordinated public relations and planning that bring together producers and communities.
- A structural challenge Form of institutions, perceptions and mental models that reinforce existing behaviors and maintain the status quo. A multi -Fefit -Land -Repurposen program that promotes a shift in cooperation devotes financial resources to enable greater capacity and system flexibility, and an openness to experiments can help to catalyze a paradigm shift if the participants have intentional challenges and solutions.
San Joaquin Valley and Madera County: Experiences on site
The article examines the advantages and challenges of the MultiBenfitfit land, which can be implemented by the lens of the Californian MultiBenfit -Land -Repurposing program (MLRP) and the San Joaquin Valley in San Joaquin, and there were more than 4.2 million acrees irrigated in 2023 and more than 3,800 domestic well -being in the past 10 years. In order to adapt sustainable groundwater management Act (SGMA) and climate change to California in 2014, the valley may have to remove up to 20% of its irrigated farmland from production.
In response to this, the California legislator created MLRP and approved state funds of 90 million US dollars. (A further 200 million US dollars for MLRP were approved in November about the Californian proposal 4 climate bond.) The California Ministry of Nature Conservation awarded eight MLRP block grants, including six in San Joaquin Valley, which in turn brought together more than 100 organizations to contribute to the process.
“California may have to take up to a million tomorrow arable land to reduce the use of groundwater to a sustainable level. The question is not whether this will happen, but how and how and how this affects our rural communities,” said this ” Stephanie Mercado, co-author and community development specialist at Self-Help Enterprises. “This article shows how, with thoughtful, integrative planning, the multi -fitic country conversion can make economic, social and ecological risks of water shortage an opportunity to bring historically cast, diverse interests together – including rural communities, indigenous peoples, landowners, producers and environmental interests – to summarize their future.”
The article also shows Madera County, in which agriculture generates almost 2 billion US dollars a year, as Early Adopter from Multibenfitfit land use. In order to comply with SGMA, the landowners in Madera have to significantly reduce the groundwater consumption, which leads to a lower production and income from agriculture that affect not only the producers, but also the municipalities for agricultural workers and the associated food production and sales industry.
In order to design his multi -legal country -repurposen program, Madera County organized 39 activities and events for public relations. After 72 advance and 28 proposals, Madera County selected six projects to submit to the Department of Conservation for state approval and financing:
- Almond -fruit garden for multi -beefit rainwater management with public access and leisure options
- Almond garden in tribal culture room
- Combined groundwater loading and flood management
- Agave harvest with low water consumption with Habitat-Co-Benefits
- Almond garden to a buffer next to a disadvantaged community
- Planned citrus garden for the groundwater loading with the restoration of the local habitats
Another pilot project, which has already received state approval, by five hectares of almond and walnut or walnut garden into the pollination habitat in addition to a small, disadvantaged community that was completely dependent on the groundwater for its water supply.
“Madera County received four times more project proposals than could be financed, which shows a strong interest of the landowner in the MLRP in our agricultural community and emphasizes the significant need for more funded funds,” said, “said,” Katie Carlson, co-author and program director and ZanjeroMadera County was contractual to direct the implementation of MultiBenfit land. “It was extremely worthwhile to support the cooperation between the program team, partners, landowners and communities, to implement economically viable projects that create disadvantageous communities and at the same time support long -term agricultural sustainability.”
Applications beyond California
Although the article focuses on California, the authors suggest that many agricultural areas all over the world could draw valuable teachings from the state's estate program of the state with similar problems.
“One-purple management fragments of our landscape in relation to individual interests and has brought California and other places into difficult situations surrounding water and environmental management” Michael Kiparsky, PhD, co-author and director of the Wheeler Water Institute at UC Berkeley School of Law. “This investigation shows how California experiments with programs that integrate several interests to combat water shortages. We do not yet know which strategies will be most effective. So we have to try out a number of solutions to manage large -scale disasters. Research that analyzes this lively experiment can help to orient the state to the most effective interventions.”
The authors of the article are Gopal Penny, Anna Schiller and Maurice Hall, Edf; José M. Rodríguez-Flores, formerly Edf and now CSU Monterey Bay; Angel Santiago Fernandez-Bou, Union of the scientists concerned; Elizabeth A. Koebele, University of Nevada-Reno; Divya Solomon, Cornell University; Katie Carlson, Zanjero; Leticia Classen-Rodriguez, Socio-Environment and Education Network; Molly Daniels, environmental incentives; Robyn Grimm, California Water Data Consortium; Michael Kiparsky, UC Berkeley; Stephanie Mercado and Sonia Sanchez, self -help company; and Karina Mudd, Valley Eco.
Read the Open Access Artit: Improvement of Water Security and the Resilience of the Landscape through Multibenfit Land Restry,
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