Investing in Regenerative Agriculture and Food
Investing in Regenerative Agriculture and Food
342 Ali Bin Shahid, one of the few who can model and calculate water cycle restoration
A conversation with Ali Bin Shahid, an engineer with a deep background in permaculture (and a military one too), a passion for modelling and one of the very few people using data and engineering approaches to tackle critical questions about regeneration. We explore how to put numbers to abstract ideas like slowing water down, spreading it, and soaking it. What does "slow" actually mean? How do we measure it—by kilometres per hour, or some other metric? How much regeneration is required to restore rivers or trigger rains in a given landscape? And, for example, where globally do we have the biggest potential? Where is the biggest gap between the forest and water potential and the current situation on the ground?
It's definitely possible to manage a few acres or a few hectares through observation, if you're there for many decades or even through different generations. But as soon as we start talking about regeneration at the landscape level, we need numbers. We need numbers and models. Surprisingly, a lot is already possible: we can calculate to a relatively detailed degree, what certain flows of air, water, and moisture will look like in a landscape. This means you can start to calculate and imagine, almost at a parcel level, where we need to regenerate in order to restore, for instance, summer rains and year-round rivers.
But the surprising part is how few people are doing this work. Ali is at the forefront, bridging the gap between philosophical principles of water cycle restoration and practical, data-driven solutions. Together, we delve into early but exciting efforts to quantify these ideas: how much water to slow, where the global potential lies, and the vast gaps between current conditions and what’s achievable.
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It's all funny and good when we say in permaculture or in general, water cycle restoration, slow water down. We need to spread it, we need to soak it, but what does it mean? What does slow mean? Is it one kilometer per hour or is it 10? How do we measure these things? How do we quantify?
Speaker 1:It's definitely possible to manage this through observation. If you only manage a few hectares or acres, if you're there many, many decades or even different generations, of course you can observe this. But as soon as you start talking about regeneration at a much larger scale, a landscape scale, we need numbers, numbers and models. Surprisingly, a lot of this is already possible. You can calculate to a relatively detailed degree what certain flows of air, water and moisture will look like in a landscape Meaning. You can start to calculate and start to imagine, almost to a parcel level, where you need to regenerate in order to restore, for instance, summer rains in the Mediterranean or year-round rivers. But what's more surprising is that hardly anybody is doing this. Today we have the pleasure to have one of the very, very few people that comes from an engineering background, loves modeling, used to be in the military and went deep into permaculture and now regeneration in general and is putting numbers to these questions what is slow? How much do we need to regenerate, how much do we need to restore in a certain landscape to have a chance of restoring, to trigger rains, to restore rivers, etc. Warning, this is early. This is an emerging practice where we put numbers to these philosophically perfectly sounding questions like slow water down and spread and soak it, but how much water? And, for example, where, globally, do we have the biggest potential, the biggest gap between the forest and water potential and the current situation on the ground. This and much more we cover in the conversation of today.
Speaker 1:This is the Investing in Regenerative Agriculture and Food podcast, investing as if the planet mattered, where we talk to the pioneers in the regenerative food and agriculture space to learn more on how to put our money to work to regenerate soil, people, local communities and ecosystems, while making an appropriate and fair return. Why my focus on soil and regeneration? Because so many of the pressing issues we face today have their roots in how we treat our land and our sea, grow our food, what we eat, wear and consume, and it's time that we, as investors big and small and consumers, start paying much more attention to the dirt, slash soil underneath our feet. To make it easy for fans to support our work, we launched our membership community and so many of you have joined us as a member. Thank you, if our work created value for you and if you have the means and only if you have the means consider joining us.
Speaker 1:Find out more on gumroadcom slash investing in RegenAg. That is, gumroadcom slash investing in RegenAg, or find the link below Welcome to another episode Today with an engineer who's deep into permaculture and loves modeling, but not the catwalk kind of thing. Welcome, ali.
Speaker 2:Hi Icon icon. How are you?
Speaker 1:this is definitely the modeling that happens behind the screen, um, and with a lot, of, a lot of computing power, um, I'm really, really looking forward to this conversation. This is a deep one on, or this is going to be a deep one on, water cycles, modeling, calculations and how to how to approach restoration at a water cycle scale. But first of all, a question I always love to ask to, to kick it off and to understand and this case it's it's super appropriate as well what led you to such a specific piece of the, let's say, regeneration movement, like you're one of the few people. I think. That's modeling water cycles and it's like calculating where, what could happen and how much needs to happen before rains come back, before rivers stabilize, et cetera. But this is a very specific career path. Let's say what led you to this and how come you spent most of your awake hours thinking about water cycles and restoration.
Speaker 2:So I started permaculture. I was introduced to permaculture in 2012. Before that, I was working in a different setup in Pakistan and anyway, I left that job.
Speaker 1:So you were an engineer. First, permaculture, second. Yeah, that's it, yeah.
Speaker 2:So I left the job and a friend of mine asked me let's do some farming, and it was basically more or less tunnel farming. So I told him I'll go through a course on tunnel farming and then I'll decide whether we should be or should not be doing it on tunnel farming, and then I'll I'll decide whether we should be or should not be doing it. At that time you're also doing a creek medicine year, uh diploma, just for this, just for the sake of it, because I liked it and I had my. My parents were a little bit sick so I had a little thought about it and I told them that I'll just go through this thing and I was doing that course as well.
Speaker 2:So by the time I finished that dental farming course, I told my friend that no, this is not possible. I can't spray like 36 sprays in a three-month cycle on something as something like tomato and a or cucumber, which is mostly eaten normally in the raw form. I said I can't do that. She said what's the solution? I said people have been doing these kinds of things since 5,000 years. There must be some other way. That's how I stumbled upon Bill Mollison. Then I did a permaculture course with Larry Kohn, and then we had a small farm. Now the problem I faced when we were doing this thing was basically my modeling. I was doing modeling when I was in the defense setup mathematical modeling and stuff and I was like, okay, these guys are saying things which make a lot of sense to me philosophically, but they don't make sense to me when I put them on the paper and I can't.
Speaker 1:I can't calculate anything. So how much is how much? Like you mean the guys in the permaculture world yeah, what were? Things that that triggered you, let's say philosophically, and triggered your engineer brain at the same time. What were they saying at the time in terms of weather?
Speaker 2:So yeah, so, for example, they say slow the water, slow the flow, spread it, sink it. So I was like, okay, how much do you slow? How do you know, is it slow enough?
Speaker 1:What is slow?
Speaker 2:Yeah, what is slow? What does slow mean? Is one kilometer per hour slow, or do I look at the land and understand slow? But even then I had this question that, okay, this is some kind of land which are like clay soils, which are, which are nearly impermeable, in the sense that, like we have in pakistan, normally we have arid soils and they are mostly clay soils, very little organic matter and or this cropping over over centuries have basically taken away all the cropping, all the organic matter from the soils, so they are like very hard when, when it rains, water flows over them. So for them, slow doesn't mean anything.
Speaker 2:Even if I just reduce the slope to like two degrees, even then the water is enough to flow over all of the land and not even permeate, permeate the first one, one foot of the soil, and this actually was a problem. When we were doing it, we would see the water flowing over the land and when we would dig the soil the next day after the rainfall, the water would permeate only the first three or four inches. Wow, and there was a very interesting thing Just beside our land there was an underground water channel which I could see because of the reeds growing on the outskirts and I was telling my partner that there is water under this soil and he was like there's no water because this is an extremely dry place. I said, these plants tell me this thing. So we had a bet and I just dug that soil and, lo and behold, we had like a raging river under three feet and the plants couldn't reach there.
Speaker 2:So my question was basically so, so, how slow? And when you have slowed the water, then what do you do? How? What does it mean by organic matter? How much do I dig inside? What's the appropriate level for uh, maximum productivity for a plant? How much do I dig? And questions like this. Similarly, when you're making compost, I had the question okay, what is the exact mixture? How can I make it a mixture that I can just teach my seven year old and tell him okay, just take this much and this much and just mix it together, don't worry about anything else?
Speaker 1:and what was the reaction to those questions, like when you post those questions in your permaculture course or after what? Um, what was the reaction to those questions, like when you post those questions in your permaculture course or afterward? What was the response?
Speaker 2:It was mostly that it's sort of like an intuitive process. You just keep on looking at the land and understand the land. The land will tell you what it wants and you can just work it out which makes sense in a in a farm, because you're always in a farm and you can actually do it. But once we started moving this was like three years ago I met Steve Bonneville. He had developed a technique known as maximum infiltration, modified key line with an unpowered pump. And when we started doing that, then the questions became even more interesting, because now in a broad scale regenerative project like the deforestation, a place which is degraded, you can't actually be on the land all the time and see or each of the aspects of the land. So then I had to work out these things and I started looking at the different research papers scientists have done and I started modeling them piece by piece. And that's just that's, that's how the region started.
Speaker 1:So basically, when you realize observation works, when you're on the land and a small piece of land every day. You can be there a few, a few decades, and you have a pretty good understanding of what's happening. But as soon as you start talking about larger scale, of course you cannot be there and you cannot see every acre constantly, and so then modeling and and calculations come in. And you did, you, when you dove into that um world, was there a lot already? Um, what did you find basically in the, in the scientific world?
Speaker 2:so the information was in silos. So someone would be doing in the scientific world, so the information was in silos. So someone would be doing a study for a certain aspect, like what happens when we have this much of fertilizer with this much of water, and the other guy would be doing it in a different way. I had to connect all of these different pieces together. Just like an engineer integrates, an engineer basically just does system integration in a broad sense. So I was just integrating different components together and seeing okay, this makes sense, this makes sense and this makes sense. Let's connect these three together. Let's see what happens, let's calculate the overall impact.
Speaker 2:My degree, my diploma with the Greek medicine helped me a lot, because in Greek medicine you actually look at things in a physical perspective rather than a chemical perspective and start connecting those things. So permaculture with that helped me connect those things together. And then the engineering background helped me do so quantitatively. So the left and right brain, right side of the brain, were both working, the creative side and the analytical side and did you find anybody else or others doing the same?
Speaker 1:like approaching the water cycle side from an engineering perspective and modeling and calculation, like okay, let's see what this actually means, um in practice and on paper there might be some guys, but when I was looking at it I couldn't find any anyone.
Speaker 2:So that's how the regenerative was born. That's how I started doing it.
Speaker 1:It was more out of necessity for myself, because I had to clarify my concepts, and then I started writing about it and that's how to sub-stack Regenesis, which I will definitely put in the show notes below, not to be confronted with the book of George Monbiot it's a re with an R and a three, because Regenesis with an E was already taken but it's an amazing sub-stack, absolutely deep dive on water cycles, restoration calculations and more, and I remember discovering it, or stumbling upon it, I think, through the work of Alpha Lo and somewhere mentioning, or that circle, let's say, of people, probably the articles he published on Spain. So how did that trigger your attention? Because you're in Islamabad, you're definitely not nearby the Iberian Peninsula, but it's an interesting place. What triggered you saying, okay, let's look at Valencia in Spain and what happened to the summer rains and what could potentially trigger them to come back?
Speaker 2:That's very interesting. Actually, I was sitting one day and I got a message from Alpha and he said can you look at these things? I have a meeting with some people in Spain and Portugal and we are looking at restoring back the rain cycles, and he was referring to Mayan. Mayan, it's work as well, so I'm familiar with Mayan.
Speaker 1:Mayan. A message that once gets like oh, I'm trying to bring back rains. Of course, those are messages we get every day In your cycles. It's a normal message.
Speaker 2:Yeah, he said can you do some calculations? And I said I haven't really thought about this thing, but let me look into it. I can do some numbers. A nice challenge, yeah. So he gave me like three days. He said I have a meeting in four days. So I said give me three days and by the end of three days I'll do it, I'll find some way. And then I started working on it. I think I started connecting different aspects. So basically, now that I look back, it's a little bit more easier to understand what the process is. Then I was totally blank at that time. But anyway, I started working on the aspects.
Speaker 2:Okay, so what are the basic factors which cause a rain Broadly? Basically, we have three types of rain. Everyone basically knows it's a very simple phenomenon. So there are convective rains, then there are the orographic rains and then the third one is the frontal rains rainfall because of the two fronts colliding the other two just for people that don't know, just to yeah so the convective rain is basically yeah, the convective rains are basically rainfalls which basically do because of the evaporation rising up in the atmosphere and then condensing air upon reaching a certain height in In case of plants.
Speaker 2:You can actually enhance that aspect by having bioaerosols and certain other conditions, like decreasing the wind speed so that the clouds can actually form they're not wind-sheared Having a certain amount of energy in the atmosphere so that the convection can actually take place and it isn't stopped by lack of energy. So either water vapor cannot rise. I'll go in this aspect a little bit more. But the second one is the orographic rain, which is mostly people are aware of that thing Winds are coming, moist winds are coming from coasts. They hit a mountain which is basically oro is for the mountain rock. It hits them and rises up because of that obstacle and as it rises up it condenses and falls, yeah, and falls.
Speaker 2:And the third one is and when you have two fronts, so you might have wind coming from a coastal area and then there's a cold front coming from the other side, the cold front and the warm front collide together. The cold front pushes the warm front to rise up in that atmosphere and condensation takes place. So in Spain I was looking at these things. So I had to look at the winds when are the winds mostly coming from and where are the places which are most opportune for orographic effect? It's easier to start off with the orographic rainfall, because if you have landscape which is already at a certain height, you can actually add plantation or just improve. Even even in the absence of uh big vegetation, you can add soil, uh soil improvements which have moisture in them, and introduce spores, because spores can actually act as biogenic aerosols spores.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, so you're saying that it's easier to start with a landscape that already lends itself, because, yeah, there is a. There's a hill system or a mountain system that pushes up the air naturally to the height it's needed, and then you can add vegetation on strategic places to increase that effect, basically, or to help the clouds coming in from the coast, because the coast should not be too far away.
Speaker 2:Yeah. So you want that moisture, a certain amount of moisture in the air, so that it can reach that saturation point. And as the height increases, saturation point decreases, so condensation occurs. So I looked at all the places which are basically at a certain height in Spain, so I was looking at a 500 meters height, so any places in Valencia which were there that were the first targets for that.
Speaker 2:And then at the top of the hill and generally, if you don't have enough moisture and you have high wind speeds, the clouds will disperse because of the wind. So you need something over at the top, sort of like a ridge forest, sort of like something which actually stops that wind from breaking the clouds from forming. So that's why you have ridge plantations and you can have ridge plantations which actually add moisture. Plus they also stop the wind from coming in. That combined together that brings a condition in which you have the aerosols from the forest and then you have the aerosols from the spores that you might have added in the soil impediments and then you have the extra moisture and the wind is stopped by these things.
Speaker 2:So the first thing is looking at these areas. Then the second thing, if you have spots in the land which are, let's say, very hot because of asphalt or concrete cities or stuff like that, even rocky places. Just try to reduce that temperature on that land, because if you have a very high temperature on the ground and a low temperature at the top, the clouds will rise and they will leave your space. There will be no localized rain. Even if you add moisture, the rain will be in the high cloud systems, which will probably so. Spain is evaporating its water and the rain happens in somewhere else, like a thousand kilometers away.
Speaker 1:Central Europe, as we saw yeah.
Speaker 2:So basically you're losing. So you're basically feeding rain somewhere else. Yeah, you're losing your water to someone else. It's basically Now it's gone into a large water cycle.
Speaker 1:So you want to keep it local and and you were able, or you started looking at this and see how do we quantify this, like where, in the system of valencia, let's say how much do we need or how much is already there.
Speaker 2:So just check. Yeah, so that for that you just find out what's the relative humidity in your area and whatever the difference is, you have to fill that difference with some way of operating extra.
Speaker 1:So what's the humidity already? And what should the humidity get to in order to trigger?
Speaker 2:Yeah, In my experience it's about 20 grams per 70 meter cube, which is from Mian Mian's research. So that's a Sorry, that's about Mian. Mian's research.
Speaker 1:So that's a Sorry. That's about Mian. Mian said it was about seven. No, what's the?
Speaker 2:20 grams per 70 meter cube. Yeah, and what's the?
Speaker 1:relative humidity. What was the relative humidity in Valencia?
Speaker 2:We basically I generally look at it in terms of total column water vapor. So you have 20 grams. It's equivalent to some I don't remember the exact figure in terms of relative humidity, but for me I just look at the total column water vapor in an area and then find the ET that is needed for that, for covering that deficit, the extra evaporation that you need to cover that deficit, the extra evaporation that you need to cover, cover that deficit.
Speaker 1:And then how do you make it concrete? Then how do you chain, transform that into we need x amount of hectares of trees or square kilometers of, etc so yeah, as I told you before, then you look at the places which are like about 500 meters.
Speaker 2:There are places which you should be looking at first for because from the ET you can actually find out how many trees per hectare you need. From the trees you can find out the ET rate of a tree or it's the evaporation rate of a tree. You can also have that same amount by using evaporation towers or just evaporating water or just having coastal winds come in.
Speaker 1:yeah, we had jesus on. Yeah, it should be out soonish. Yeah, so there are different ways of of covering that, that gap, that deficit, yeah, yeah, and when you did that, for there it was, did it sound like a an impossible amount or possible, like what was your first?
Speaker 2:reaction no, it was not much difference. So if you look at that, there's probably like 600 or 300 square kilometers. Let me pull out my sub stack. I don't exactly remember the numbers. No, of course, because you do so many of these. Okay, it was about from 300 to 600 kilometers for 20 increase in rain for a 20 increase in range.
Speaker 1:You said, yeah, wow. And so it's interesting also when you look at these places where it's relatively close, like the gap is small between, but there's still no rain happening. Because you need to read it like it's a very binary system, like it needs to hit a certain amount of humidity, otherwise it doesn't rain, and if you're just below it it just blows away and rain somewhere else. But also figuring out where the Delta is the smallest could be like where, where's the leverage point, where's the easiest to to influence the evaporation enough to actually trigger rains. So you did that in a few days you send it to Alpha and then what happened? You also put it on your sub-stack immediately.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so I told Alpha that this is basically a baseline criteria. So if I visit that place and I look at those areas and I have exact data, then I can improve it much more than that. I can be very exact in that I call this baseline because I just looked at the topography of Spain and just some spaces. I just found out the places which were a little bit higher in elevation and just found out the total area which is forested and how much is the current total column water vapor on average in valencia, on average, because I don't have that exact. But what you are saying is for is when you have that exact number, you can actually pinpoint. That's another factor when you can actually use. So, with the places which have the least amount of deficit, those should be the places which should be forested in the first step.
Speaker 1:And then does it matter how it's forested, because they're forest and forest like, what are you using in terms of calculation, in terms of evaporation rate of trees, healthy forest versus plantation?
Speaker 2:So generally, I was looking at 5 mm per day of trees Jetropha and trees like this, eucalyptus. They're generally in that range, but it doesn't really matter which trees are you using, because a certain place can be more suited for a certain type of tree. Just look at trees which evaporate a lot of water, according to that area. Don't focus on eucalyptus or geotropa only.
Speaker 1:Focus on the trees that evaporate a lot and are able to, because they might need to be irrigated, especially if the water cycle is broken. You need to figure out how to do that over time, long enough to get the rain back so you don't rely on it would be a shame if you're depleting an aquifer to to see the rain, of course, yeah yeah, for uh, there's another aspect which I didn't mention the spain project.
Speaker 2:But before you do any kind of any kind of afforestation work, you need to find out what's the water potential of that land, which doesn't mean the winds which are bringing in the moisture. It actually means how much water is underground, how much water is flowing on the land. I just did a calculation for Panama Canal recently. I haven't put it on the blog.
Speaker 1:I was thinking Because of the droughts recently.
Speaker 2:Yeah because of the droughts and the lack of water in the Panama Canal. So there I didn't even look at the forestation, I just looked at the base flows which are in a certain area, because the base flows are actually feeding that Panama Canal, the Cartoon Lake. So I was looking at the base flows and how to enhance the base flows. So for there I was using a different technique, not forestation, because in the Amazon there are some basins which were in the Panama. There were some basins which were 98% forested and still there was a lot of runoff. So you have to go in a different way there. You have to find out the frequency of the rains, rainfalls which are the wet months, and what's actually happening in the dry, dry months. So the lake was.
Speaker 2:So what technique did you? Yeah, so it was borewell harvesting in the in that space. So you need microspores. Actually it it just I was just looking at that data and there was a basin in which there was some indigenous people living and they had wells. In that basin there were a lot of base flow and very little runoff compared with the adjacent basin, which is nearly the same amount of forested. It was also 98% forested, but it had very high base flows. So I did some digging and found out that the macrospores were responsible for the additional base flows. The macrospores.
Speaker 2:What do you mean, macropores?
Speaker 1:Macropores, so basically. Basically wells, so it was the same amount in the two basins it was the same forested but they had a completely different runoff, which means something else is happening there.
Speaker 2:Yeah, different runoff, which means something else is happening there. Yeah, so they had like from and in that space. I calculated how much. How much borewells will I need to dig in this areas to increase the base flows?
Speaker 1:so meaning basically, in the dry period you would take I'm sorry, in a dry period you would take water from below, from the aquifer, from below water. So it basically means why would you dig Okay?
Speaker 2:So it basically is like this Again three, three seven-year-old son, yeah, sorry. Yeah, I'm going in that way. So it's like this the rainfall is occurring and the basin has a lot of slopes, like 40-degree slopes. Despite having a lot of forest 98% covered the sheer topography of the land is actually forcing the water to run off because it's it's super sloppy, yeah, it's super steep, but the adjacent basin had had wells in it and that extra water would actually go directly in the way.
Speaker 1:ah, so it's to go down, so they were basically yeah, increasing.
Speaker 2:Increasing the ground water level. How do you infiltrate again? How do?
Speaker 1:you infiltrate, yeah, so trees weren't enough to help.
Speaker 2:Yeah, trees were not enough in that case. On that side, on the other side, you need trees. On the other side of the Panama, in the Rio Trinidad, you need trees for that.
Speaker 1:But this is a fascinating piece, again because I don't know if people follow the news. I haven't done it deeply enough, but I think the Panama Canal has been reduced drastically, like the amount of ships that could go through it. I don't know if it changed recently, but it's a massive cost to Panama, because less ships means less money, and to the global economy because they have to go around. If they're too heavy, um, or too deep, they basically cannot pass, and, and anybody that has ever looked at a map is knows that going around is a interesting trip, um, not only because of what you're going to burn to to do that, but also because of cost and and time, and that's all because of water management. Basically, like, if they have more stable water levels, then they can run their canal as they used to.
Speaker 2:So, coming back to our question, so initially, so you had to look at the water potential of that land by seeing the rainfall and the slopes of the land and then manage that rainfall potential, because that's the key thing, the amount of water you can harvest from the land.
Speaker 2:And basically, forests are basically sort of like a rainwater harvesting structures, much more advanced than what we do, but in an engineering term they are doing the same function. They are just acting as shock absorbers, as water tanks, as infiltrators, putting in dampers in the system, putting that water in the ground and evaporating it. So rainwater harvesting, just look at the rainwater harvesting. So in case of Valencia, the first thing that should be done is either do some sort of a key line, modified key line thing with borewell harvesting so that you can actually raise the groundwater whenever it rains, minimize the runoff as much as you can, actually raise the groundwater whenever it rains, minimize the runoff as much as you can and then move on from there, because once you have the water in the land, then you don't have that problem that you have to waste a whole lake to just grow the crops, grow the forest and then expect rain in the end.
Speaker 1:So the first step is really to have have more water in the land yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1:And so what were the reactions? Or, like, you've opened your sub stack. You started it last year I mean, this was recording in in october 24 and you started it in december at the end of the year 23. Um, how's been the sub stack? Right, let's say what? What have you, as you expected, different, more interesting, more relevant? Like what have you has your journey of writing about this publicly and and being very active on linkedin as well? Like, how has that been?
Speaker 2:I did not expect that uh people would be seeing that, because it was mostly my own sort of. I was doing it for myself. Even now, when I do something, I am actually trying to find answers for myself and I just started posting it for everyone that maybe someone else can benefit as well. So most of the content I was doing I still do is is free. Mostly 90 is still free, although I'm starting to feel now that I have little less and less time.
Speaker 1:But anyway, I still try to keep it that way now are you planning to turn it into more of a of a business model or a job like as some step some sub stacks have done and others, of course, have not like? What's your your thinking there? Or is it mainly also your sort of public notebook of the work you're doing, what you find interesting and if it's great if other people read it? But it's not the fundamental driver?
Speaker 2:yeah, it's kind of like I had some funds and I've actually dried those funds while I was doing this thing. I'm looking for an economical model which can actually support me as well, but I'm still in two minds whether to go with the same way more of the content-free and very little parts on charge. But let's see, I'm still figuring that out.
Speaker 1:I haven't figured that out, and are you looking for, like the consultancy side, or what would be your ideal job or work in this space?
Speaker 2:My ideal job? I think I would. I'm still. I'm actually working with some, with a few guys, not exactly in this, as you would say, paying capacity right now the outer aspect, but the other aspects as well of the biosphere, the anthroposphere, the geosphere, lithosphere, cryosphere, connecting all of these things together and then finding out the missing pieces that are not being checked right now in the modeling and putting those missing pieces in. We'll probably be using some kind of AI, generated AI to fill in the gaps for the data.
Speaker 1:And what is the use case or what is the reason to do that beyond water? Why to do?
Speaker 2:The use case is that, for example, if you see a place like, for example let's say, I don't remember the figures in Europe, what happened right now, but I'll just take the 2022 floods in Pakistan, which is about the government saying like it's like 4 billion plus dollars of damage.
Speaker 1:It's probably underestimated, so probably.
Speaker 2:So if you have something like this, which can actually find out the tipping points based on the landscape, climate, bioreason, you can actually use it as a dashboard, put it in front of the policymakers that the next time, if this much rain occurs, this is going to be the damage, and then you can actually force them to do the regenerative work.
Speaker 1:I mean, that has the assumption in it that if you show the data to people, they will act, which is not always the case, but I think some people will and some people won't. But you're saying with these kind of absolutely devastating floods because I don't know if people remember, in 2022, there was a massive floods in Pakistan and I think the ones you're referring to now in Europe there were just some in Central Europe, mostly Austria, I think, czech Republic, slovakia, et cetera. There were some massive floods also connected to and if you go to LinkedIn, you'll find some interesting places connected to a very hot Mediterranean sea. Over the summer.
Speaker 1:Of course, all the records were broken again and the moist didn't go anywhere. I mean, it stayed above, didn't rain and moved basically in a nice big circle you can almost you can actually see it from satellite imagery and then stayed because it was pushed by a northern front. It sort of stayed put for a few days above Central Europe and, of course, if it stays put, it starts to rain. It just didn't move anymore. Once in Pakistan in 22,. Have you done some modeling or some calculation of where that occurred from, like, where did the moist come from and why was it so devastating?
Speaker 2:It was basically of the La Nina effect. But if I look at that, even though people say they were devastating, and even though the effects were devastating, if you look at the amount of rainfall that was happening, that was not a lot of rainfall. The only problem was this that there was no land to actually infiltrate that water. I actually did it, yeah. Yeah, I did a study on that and I just found out that if a certain amount of this riverine ecosystem is established, there will never be a flood like this. Even if the flood is increased by five times, even then it will absorb that rain. I did that in by five times, even then it will absorb that rain. I did that in. It's probably 72, number 72 on Regenesis. I have found that it's generally not the amount of rainfall. That's the problem. Mostly, the problem is the amount of land that we have degraded or misused in a way that cycles are broken and floods are happening.
Speaker 1:And so you're saying, if we present this and I will put those 72 and 73 in the show notes as well your examination of the Pakistan floods in two parts, if you show this data and with this engine to policymakers and say, look, it's way cheaper to treat these and these pieces of land or this part of Pakistan in this case, then we will never have a flood like that again. That would potentially create policy or create movement, because it has never been presented in that way. Is that what's missing? A good, easy way of presenting, in this case, cause and effect of floods?
Speaker 2:Yeah, I think it can force them. It can actually maybe encourage them to do it like this, but this can also be used in another way. For example, world Bank and IMF they put a lot of money when Pakistan was flooded inundated. That money could actually be used not to directly change the landscape, rather than just they can actually put in some mechanisms in which they can. I'm actually trying to work out that part as well, that you have a dashboard in which you can actually have have. Actually, I'm actually trying to work out that part as well, that you have a dashboard in which you can actually have those things included as well. Anyway, that's still a long way.
Speaker 1:I was thinking about it but it's a very relevant bridge, let me use it in this way like what does this mean for the financial space and system? And you already mentioned four billion, probably more, in terms of damaging? We have heard actually before, when talking about water cycle restoration, that it potentially is better to talk about floods because it's way more in your face, very costly. It's much more on people's mind than, oh, let's restore the water cycle, the small one, et cetera. I will put the link to that interview we did with Blanken's name Oxbury Bank he founded in the UK and he was saying yeah, we need to talk about floods and flood mitigation and flood prevention more than we talk about water cycles, because that's what people are scared about. If you have a data center, if you have a dam, if you have a city, if you have anything downstream from a flood, you're going to be interested in prevention. And so, for the financial side, have you done any calculations, any work connecting this work to, let's say, the world of money, dollars, pounds, et cetera?
Speaker 2:Not in that sense, not exactly but I did it in the way that, for instance, you are reviving a riverine ecosystem, you can actually have in that riverine ecosystem special zones in. You can actually have in that riverine ecosystem special zones in which you can actually create microclimates and you can grow certain cash crops which can actually enable the local people to earn a lot of livelihood. For instance, right now in Pakistan, normally cotton is grown in these areas and cotton is like $4,000 or $2,000 per ton, but if you grow saffron it's about $40,000 per ton and you can actually create those conditions in a riverine ecosystem where you can actually have that extra bit of money coming in for the people. So that's one thing. But then there is another aspect which is normally which can also be looked into, which is the pollutant load that is actually entering into the rivers. And that pollutant load is actually it converts into greenhouse gases when there's a lot of biological, organic oxygen demand bods you need to, you need to walk us through that, please, please.
Speaker 1:I'm I'm pulling my my seven year old card again. Okay, I don't know basically in this interview, but in this conversation. But I've used a few and I'll probably use a few more no problem.
Speaker 2:So, uh, so basically in mostly these developing countries, pakistan and Africa I don't know about India, but Bangladesh, etc Normally the sewage directly enters the rivers and when the sewage enters the rivers, converts that into a, into an open sewage canal, and it's always methane and all of those gases are released from that river which are actually all greenhouse gases. So if you can actually show a way, show a metric, to tell someone that this is the amount of carbon that's being released, and you can actually do a riverine ecosystem in a way which can actually remove those carbon as in the case of a carbon offset scheme you can remove those things.
Speaker 2:You can actually also earn money from there basically saying currently the sewage, it will flow into the river it will flow into the air.
Speaker 1:It will massive methane, carbon etc. And so there is a potential to leverage that to stop that and somehow not having it go up in the air and potentially earn money on it.
Speaker 2:I did 104 on this. It's also part of repairing the water cycles. Because it was interesting to see you write about sewage to.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I didn't expect that on this.
Speaker 2:It's also part of repairing the water cycles, because everyone it's interesting to see you write about sewage.
Speaker 1:I didn't expect that, but it makes a lot of sense.
Speaker 2:Yeah, the current one is a diet in my ocean exploration. It also connects with that.
Speaker 1:I will put it in the show notes. I always love to ask this question and imagine we're doing this in a theater in Islamabad or in the financial heart of Pakistan or the region we might be in the Middle East or New York and the room is full of investors, people that are managing money either their own or other people's money maybe pension funds, insurance companies, banks, things like that and of course, we do this on stage. We have a full evening talking about water cycles restoration, a lot of pictures behind. People are super inspired, but people also forget. If there was one thing you could, one seed you could plant in their mind and that they remember the next day, preferably when they're back at work and they do something, what would that be? What would be the seed you want to plant in their mind that they remember from an evening talking about what's possible in terms of water cycle restoration?
Speaker 2:One seed, as in the case of what's the one thing that they should be doing?
Speaker 1:They should remember. Yeah, but what should financial people know? I think that's the summary of my long question.
Speaker 2:Okay, if I was to say one thing that they should remember, I would say that give people the Use your funds to actually, for example, if you have like a billion dollars, spend 500 million on just teaching people how to harvest water, because once they start doing water harvesting, they'll understand what forests do and they can build communities around that aspect. They can remove their water shortages, they can feel the abundance, grow food and whole communities can come together, like they did in India in the Pani Foundation. They just taught people how to harvest water and that changed the whole economy of the people and of the land. They had access water, the people had access food, their lives improved and they also started caring for the environment, because once you have the abundance, you actually start feeling for the environment and water harvesting such an interesting thing that it's. I told you before, it's functionally the same. Whether you dig a pond or you plant a tree, it's functionally the same.
Speaker 1:And once people start understanding, that we're going to upset some people now with that. They say, no, but a living system. You say it doesn't matter, you need to capture all the water. Whatever way you use, do it.
Speaker 2:Now I'm saying this is a stopgap solution. Rainwater harvesting is always a stop gap solution when you don't have forests. Eventually, people, when they start seeing that, they will eventually move towards that just by seeing the sheer amount of abundance that that rainwater harvesting scheme did to them. So even if someone is in an urban city and he is rainwater harvesting on his roof, it's the same principles. And once he does that that he understands what forests are doing in a, in a desert, and he can connect with that thing conceptually.
Speaker 2:So that's the first thing that anyone should be doing rainwater harvesting, education, that's the education and maybe empowering empowering people by tools or techniques or stuff but this is not rocket science, like this is not a.
Speaker 1:This is not rocket science. This is not rocket science. This has been done. Just look for the Pani Foundation. They're very interesting YouTube videos about the scale. I don't think many people know how big their impact has been. I think the count is now. We had Zach Wise on it who mentioned it a few times. I think some videos are mentioning seven rivers came back, but I think they're up to nine or ten now, which is just like from very simple water harvesting techniques done by a lot of people at a large scale, you basically restore year round water flow through rivers, which changes everything in a landscape, obviously, and then we can start talking about small water cycles. Ok, so that's half of the world.
Speaker 2:That's half of it, small water cycles, okay so that's half of the world, billion and the rest.
Speaker 2:So the next 300 billion you should spend in places which are the most opportune places, and by opportune I mean they have the least amount of forest there, because when you have a place which is heavily deforested and it has a rainwater potential, which is which supports forests, then you have a lot of opportunity. So I'll just take example of two places. Uh, you have the mediterranean it's about 20 percent forested, and we have pakistan here, and it's about four percent forested now there's not like that's 4.0, not 40.
Speaker 2:Yeah that's 4%. Even less than that, it's probably 3.9 something. But anyway, pakistan is not a desert per se. There's a lot of rainfall, but all the rainfall goes into the Arabian Sea. It just runs off. Nothing is stored. So you have a lot of potential there, and similarly in Mediterranean. If you can put in forests there, you can actually convert the entire landscape, make it an abundant landscape. You can also change the local climate. Pakistan is also probably the third. It's known as the third bowl of the world because it has one of the highest peaks, one of the highest peaks, karakoram 2, just nearly the same height as Mount Everest, and it also has the lowest point, which is like 20 minus 20 meters so the topography is great you have the full topography of the world, basically and it has like any place in the world.
Speaker 2:All of the climate zones are in Pakistan, so you can have a desert and nearly a sort of like a subtropical zone in some places, and then there are 8,000 plus glaciers in Pakistan. It's also an amazing number. So the amount of opportunity here and showcasing something you can actually use that model to convince anyone in the world that you can use Similarly with Mediterranean, because, again, it has a lot of potential because of the amount of the gap between the forests that there could be. And when you look at forests, don't look at them as something which are non-producing things, because you can actually work your way with different vertical producing things, like you have multiple crops one over the other, not like the You're not saying it should be a, a forest where nobody?
Speaker 1:this would be a working forest, and working trees production trees. Of course they product, producing in general, but also in terms of food, fiber oils, etc. Um, so, looking at the most opportune places, and now are you saying or suggesting or meaning that, with the computing power we have now and the modeling that we can actually pinpoint those places? Because I feel that maybe 10 years ago or five years ago or I don't know exact number, but it was not possible to say the most opportune we said it a bit more like okay, it sounds like we started, it sounds philosophically right, but I cannot really put a number on it. Mediterranean sounds great. Pakistan, pakistan I can see the topography, I can see the potential, I can see the amount of impacts because the amount of people there, et cetera, et cetera. But now you can actually put a number on it, say, okay, these are the five places with the highest potential because of these reasons, you also have Senai, because Senai directly influences the Mediterranean climate.
Speaker 2:So Senai is also that third place.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, and we had the weathermakers on, Of course. Now the region is again in turmoil and so I don't think a lot is happening in Egypt at the moment. But it will happen at some point Fascinating potential project there. But are you suggesting we can calculate now and let's say satisfy your engineering brain.
Speaker 2:I think that it will probably be maximum of a year before we can do that Maximum. That's the maximum limit, or maybe two years. What is missing? But I'm pretty sure that what's missing.
Speaker 1:Yeah, what's missing now in terms of why can't we do? It now, yet Like what's missing currently.
Speaker 2:A couple of things. For example, the biopreservation models are not in the climate models as such. And there are certain aspects of yeah, and there are certain other aspects which are also no-transcript, Sorry. What does it mean in plain language? In plain English, it basically means that when the data is being taken from the land, they're using a space of five square kilometer by five square kilometer, which is too big to outside.
Speaker 2:Which is too big to cover everything. It covers the general circulation patterns. Plus, there are other aspects which are some of the factors in the climate. Models are taken as inputs, as, for example, the general circulation patterns, but there's more research coming in which is showing that the forest can actually change the general circulation patterns as well with the biotic pump and all of those things. So once those things are in place and secondly, the data problem. We don't have the data for everything right now, but with the AI coming up and the increasing complexity of the models, those gaps can be filled. And once those gaps are filled, you can actually pinpoint the exact locations where you would need certain things to change the climate. It would eventually go into a geoengineering sort of a space from natural regeneration, but this is something we have to live with.
Speaker 1:It's our only hope. Probably the natural geoengineering side of things. Um, what's the risk there? Like is the fewer risk, sense of risk? Like with this, extremely powerful models and a prediction what, what's the worst that could happen yeah, that's why the climate change doesn't.
Speaker 2:It's happened. Climate change has to happen from the hearts. First, the hearts have to become less greedy, because any, anything, any, any, any information can actually be used as a as a tool for warfare.
Speaker 1:Any good thing can be converted into a weapon and so, of course, if you can start changing weather, and so, of course, if you can start changing weather patterns and things like that, yeah, there will be ways we figure out how to use it against other people.
Speaker 2:Probably less compared to geoengineering. Yes, because forests can actually produce their own rainfall. So it will be dangerous, but not too dangerous, as maybe cloud seeding directly.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it should bring a lot more abundance and stability in theory, but yeah, in practice we have to see, but it will be a problem. We can figure out once the abundance is clear and happening, which we're clearly not anytime soon at the moment. And if you could change one thing overnight, if you had a magic one, so we take away your, um, your one billion investment fund, and but you do have the magic power or the power to change one thing which could be consciousness get away, get rid of subsidies or not, like it could be literally anything. What would that be?
Speaker 2:In terms of climate change In general, completely free.
Speaker 1:Oh, we've had really diverse answers, from like subsidy schemes to all animals outside, to global consciousness, to better taste for people when they taste food. Full spectrum. Let's say you can, can choose from, but you have only one, so that's the only limitation.
Speaker 2:okay, that's a very interesting question, so I had a couple of things coming in my mind and I just lost all of them, but anyway, I'll try to answer this question, take your time.
Speaker 2:For me, the first thing that you, the only thing that we should be doing, one thing that we should be doing, is looking at everything as if it is part of us. It's an extension of us and we are extension of it. Think of ourselves as part of the whole scheme, not as someone we like. Don't extract anything without thinking that you will not have a opposite reaction to that. So use everything in a in a just and equitable way, even if it's the resources from Earth or it's your relation with other people.
Speaker 1:I think it's a really good answer to the magic wand question and, as a final one, inspired definitely by John Kempf, if you like, where are you contrarian? What do you believe to be true about regenerative agriculture, or, let's say, regeneration of water cycles, that others don't believe to be true? No, that's actually like. Where are you contrarian in your thinking? Within your group, like within, maybe, the water cycle group, or maybe within the regeneration movement? Where are you? Where are you thinking differently?
Speaker 2:I think that, basically, the tipping points and the climate, whatever the limits of the earth that we have, these are the limits of the industrialized extractive system. They are not the limits of natural regeneration systems. So we can actually use those limits, tipping points, to come back to a methodology which is more inclusive, which actually enhances the natural ability of the soil and natural ability of the ecosystems, because we haven't really seen the full capacity of the natural ecosystems occurring in unison, coming together to usher in an era which is sort of like not degrowth but more like a regrowth sort of a thing.
Speaker 1:They were only scratched the surface of potential and people can see it because we're all living in degraded lands.
Speaker 2:basically, it's not that we have a lot of examples where we can see the potential or the abundance and this is this is one point where I I have a lot of, uh, problem talking to people, because normally when people talk about climate change, they are mostly looking at things in a very black and white way okay, these are the tipping points, and we are over consuming, so we'll die and we'll, everything will finish. And they're not taking into account the capacity and capability of the earth, of the natural systems, to actually come and help us and teach us ways in which we can actually enhance those limits. But those limits must be understood, because those limits tell us that this system cannot go on for long the way we are doing things right now, so we have to change ways.
Speaker 1:But it doesn't mean that there couldn't be other systems that could go on and beyond.
Speaker 2:It doesn't mean that you have to stop everything and degrowth everything.
Speaker 1:It just means you have to look into the I think it's a perfect way to wrap this up.
Speaker 1:Thank you so much, ali, for, first of all, the work you do for I hope many more people join your subsec paying as well people come on and for coming on here and explaining and sharing what is already possible, what will be possible soon, and with more and better modeling and more computer power and, of course, with more people focusing on it. And I'm looking forward to following you and following the work you do and see. Hopefully you'll be joined soon by more people with an engineering mindset and modeling capacity to go deep in regeneration and water cycles, because we need it. We cannot rely on Ali alone and we need more of these calculations. So thank you so much. And then, of course, having people to put it into practice, because it's great to have ideas and put it in front of people and great plans, but if we don't translate that into action on the ground, we're going to be left in the misery as we are now. But thank you so much for coming on here for explaining.
Speaker 1:Sorry for the many interruptions as a 70-year-old, but I think we needed to share some of the pieces for the audience and for myself mostly, because, of course, the audience is way, way smarter than I am, but I need to have some explanations every now and then.
Speaker 2:Thank you very much for inviting me and it's no problem. I know I can get a bit carried away sometimes with the concepts. Thank you very much for having me.
Speaker 1:No, it's super complex and we need to like there's that bridge is needed, and so I'm happy to play my small part in that, Thank you. Thank you for having me. Thank you so much for listening all the way to the end. For the show notes and links we discussed in this episode, check out our website investinginregenerativeagriculturecom. Forward slash posts. If you liked this episode, why not share it with a friend or give us a rating on Apple Podcasts? That really helps. Thanks again and see you next time time.
