In today’s show we discuss the 4 R’s of Regenerative Hydrology – Receive, Retain, Recharge, and Release – a simple mental framework for evaluating how your landscape is functioning with regards to the water element, AND how you can make changes in your management and design to optimize it for the benefit of your land, family, business and quality of life.
The 4 R’s have parallels in managing a bank account.
- Receive is equivalent to Income – how much water does your landscape receive annually in precipitation? There isn’t a lot we can do to change this number, but there are a few. It’s important to know what you’re working with from the outset.
- Recharge is equivalent to Deposit – how much of that annual paycheck is your landscape able to deposit into its interest-bearing savings account (i.e. your soil).
- Retain is equivalent to the interest-bearing savings account. How long is that water that you’ve managed to deposit into your soils or is being stored in some form or fashion remaining available to the web of life on your landscape? You can only put it to productive use if you retain it!
- Release is equivalent to Expenditure – we want to make sure that when we “spend” water we do so in a way that further increases our ability to receive, recharge an retain more water in the future! This means having systems of production and managing them so as to create a functional hydrology throughout your landscape!
Getting started designing your homestead?
START HERE: Enroll in the Minimum Holistic Goal Creation Mini-Course today for free. This is the ONE THING that will make everything else easier or unnecessary on your homesteading journey! 100% Free
Upon completing this course you will have a crystal clear idea of who and what resources you have to work with, your desired Quality of Life that your homestead has to provide for, and what you will need to produce and the conditions required to sustain that production to meet your Quality of Life needs.
Music by Alex Grohl
