Mr. Bruce Danckwerts from Zambia reports on his efforts to provide local farmers with relevant ecological and climatological information, and to catalyze the recovery of a rain-competent tree cover
Dear Anastassia, Thanks for posting this on your Substack - it will certainly help it to get a much wider audience than my limited network. So I really appreciate your help. I do want to apologize that one of the links seems to be linking to one of my radio programs (that discussed using the miter drains of roads to capture water) which I hope readers might still find interesting, even though it wasn't the intended file! I have just done a quick check, and I cannot see where the problem lies. I believe the missing file was one on "Designated Small Stick Harvesters" (which explains how I am trying to convert charcoal burners into Small Stick Harvesters) and it can be found at https://drive.google.com/file/d/1keAy0oWNx8jsOqnrN28aMcxjHtTNjAiV/view?usp=sharing I hope that helps anyone who would like to look into this aspect in more detail.
Thanks John. I see I had actually started watching that same video on You Tube, but only as far as his sketch on how a rocket stove works. The difference between his and our Moto waMvula is that ours allows (what combustion engineers call) primary air to flow up through a 'grate' under the fire. What he sketched allows 'secondary' air to flow over the top of the fire - better than nothing but not as efficient. The Moto waMvula also allows for larger branches to be utilized - if a family is living in the same place for years, all the very small firewood would be long gone; by allowing for the use of branches up to 9cm in diameter and any length, it increases the choice of different sized wood and reduces the amount of time needed to prepare that wood for burning.
Saving the Trees is almost all about cooking efficiency. Growing a new tree from a seedling is a labour of love, to get a seedling to just survive the first 5 years, and then to wait another 40 before it is big enough to utilise. FMNR (or Konzani Mitengo as we call it here) is more reliable, as most stumps survive a great deal better than a seedling. All this effort will be insufficient if we continue to use cook stoves that are 4x less efficient than the Moto wa Mvula. I have to confess that most of my working life as a farmer I grew tobacco, which I cured with firewood. However, very soon after I got back from university, I built a curing system (known as a tunnel) that used one seventh of the amount of firewood as the 'conventional' barns that I had inherited, even though these barns had been upgraded with furnace fans (to provide that all important primary air) and recirculating fans (to improve the air movement through the tobacco leaves). Those tunnels (I eventually built two) gave my trees seven times longer to regrow, than if I had stayed with those barns. They allowed my farm to slowly regain trees; without them I would have run out of trees a long time ago. Hence my focus on developing a cheap, efficient and practical stove.
My main thought had been to find something cheap and accessible, which people might employ easily to improve cooking efficiency. I don't know how readily available cinder-blocks are in your area. That would be the main thing.
I appreciate the attention to detail and the optimization of design process which you described.
I forgive you for growing tobacco, myself... Life is a learning process. ;-)
I have a small rural homestead in the Texas coastal plains, far enough inland to avoid the worst of hurricanes, with good soil, but it is a clay soil, and only some trees will grow, despite my drip system, so I am 6 years into discovery. Until you try something all of your ideas will be great, right?
My vegetable gardens here and in our small, rented Austin place do well without chemicals. An ecosystem develops where the bugs support bug-predators, but it takes a couple of patient years. drjohnsblog.substack.com
I am interested in your work, because in post-peak-oil, it is all of our work.
Thank You, again.
PS: The Limpopo River immediately reminded my of "The Elephant's Child" Kipling book, which I very much liked having read to me as a human child.
The Elephant's Child loved "the gray green greasy Limpopo River".
Bruce's story is amazingly inspiring. Water levels in East Africa are baffling. A recent publication (https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ejrh.2024.101999) suggested (not really explaining why/how) that in recent years EArains seem to concentrate in patches, leaving nearby areas dry. It does look like a "broken" pattern creating a mosaic of extreme hydrologies. I wonder if this could represent a failure of the Small Water Cycle (Kravcik; www.waterparadigm.org) explaining that rains focus more selectively on fewer "acceptor" areas (Makarieva & Gorshkov) rather than being evenly distributed. Too much as well as too little = a farming nightmare. Are we drifting out of Holocene "stability" (Roskstroem)?? Kwaheri from Calabria.
Thanks Nic, I will follow those two links. I have just sent emails to the Zimbabwe Water Authority asking them for flow data on some of their rivers, and to the Limpopo Water Authority (shared by 4 nations) for their flow data on the Limpopo. I would like to see what correlation (if any) there is between the flow of the Zambezi (in the North West above Victoria Falls) and these other rivers, and, if they have the data, between these other, southern rivers. I was recently sent some tree ring data that attempted to estimate rainfall from 1800 to about 1960. The correlation between the trees (good rainfall from1900 to 1920) and the Zambezi (low rainfall) was poor.
Nic I don't really follow Kenyan rain as you are Northern Hemisphere and so a different system, though I do share my ideas with a regenerative livestock farmer in Somaliland. The Small (Terrestrial) Hydrological cycle must still follow the same principles, so it would be worth comparing notes. Peaceydanckwerts@gmail.com will find me. I drove back from Livingstone (near the Victoria Falls) on Thursday and it was heavy rain for most of 150kms - enough to get the streams flowing again, yet my own farm received nothing. I would have expected that my farm is on the edge of an "acceptor" area, and that most of that 150kms was not, so there is always going to be a lot of random data, which will make it very tricky to understand what exactly is happening. But it is networking like this that will help us get there, so thank you
Condensation requires 1st enough evaporative materials vapors in the atmosphere second enough nuclei..dust to energize the formations of clouds leading to precipitation. Find a source of water vapor, even if it is 1000 miles away and secure the wind direction to blow that vapor to enough nuceli/dust particles and wala you get clouds and
rain. Capture the water for long enough times and grasslands will grow, the brush, then forests. Just some thoughts of encouraging nature to solve the problem
Dear Bruce, thank you for your critical analysis of evidence as ever, greatly appreciated and welcome. Regarding record high of the Limpopo river versus low Zambezi river, I can say the following.
Therefore, it would require a forty times more significant precipitation anomaly (in absolute terms) to change the usual Zambezi's discharge by the same relative amount as Limpopo's. Or, to put it another way, a relative small precipitation anomaly could significantly perturb the Limpopo's discharge while going unnoticed in the Zambezi regions.
Second, the Limpopo basin is on average considerably closer to the ocean than the Zambezi's basin. Global change models consistently predict higher rainfall over the ocean in a warming climate -- I will explain this hopefully in my next post -- largely due to increasing absorption of solar energy as the ice shields melt and a shifting proportion of more latent heat versus sensible heat at constant relative humidity and rising temperature. So this increase in oceanic precipitation can also influence coastal regions but less so the inner parts of the continent. Even deserts occasionally get flooded (because of the positive feedback between precipitation and moisture convergence that I discussed in Biotic Pump Q&A https://bioticregulation.substack.com/p/biotic-pump-q-and-a
Theoretically, increasing water content in the air over the warmer ocean could (at least partially) compensate the decline in biotic pump functioning due to deforestation. That is, the ocean-to-land winds would weaken but those that still arrive to land would carry more vapor. But as I discussed in "We are losing soil moisture, why?" https://bioticregulation.substack.com/p/we-are-losing-soil-moisture-why this is not what appears to be happening and the biotic pump decline does not appear to be compensated.
Thanks Anastassia, that is why I love the Internet, one can so easily get in touch with proper experts. I think your explanation of the Limpopo being so small (compared to the Zambezi) is definitely part of the story. I will have to check your figures, because the flow of the Zambezi that I mentioned is measured at 3 stations above the Victoria Falls, and I am not sure of the catchment at each station. Certainly a small fraction of the 1.9mkm2. Also, my son has just returned from the Okavango Delta, and they are experiencing a higher than usual water level - and that is about as inland as you can get. I am hoping to get historic flow data back from the Limpopo Authority soon, and if I do get some, I will share it here, alongside the Zambezi data. Bruce Danckwerts, CHOMA, Zambia
Dear Anastassia if you have a chance you might like to see what has happened to the former rivers in Siberia. Silicon detention rates are very noticeable and could have a direct effect on all of all Marine life and Effecting large portions of ocean regions, climate etc,
I have converted the talk (that I gave to our Wildlife and Environmental Conservation Society WECSZ in Lusaka) into a .pdf file that you can now read on the Bring Back the Rains page of radio4pasa.com. It is about a 22 minute read, but I hope you will all find it worth the time.
Dear Anastassia, Thanks for posting this on your Substack - it will certainly help it to get a much wider audience than my limited network. So I really appreciate your help. I do want to apologize that one of the links seems to be linking to one of my radio programs (that discussed using the miter drains of roads to capture water) which I hope readers might still find interesting, even though it wasn't the intended file! I have just done a quick check, and I cannot see where the problem lies. I believe the missing file was one on "Designated Small Stick Harvesters" (which explains how I am trying to convert charcoal burners into Small Stick Harvesters) and it can be found at https://drive.google.com/file/d/1keAy0oWNx8jsOqnrN28aMcxjHtTNjAiV/view?usp=sharing I hope that helps anyone who would like to look into this aspect in more detail.
Bruce Danckwerts, CHOMA, Zambia www.radio4pasa.com/Bring_back_the_rains
Thank You, Bruce. I salute your work and your positive attitude.
Cinder-block or fire brick (better) rocket stoves might be a trend that would spread like wildfire, so to speak. https://youtu.be/FMhUFthG4bU?t=688
Thanks John. I see I had actually started watching that same video on You Tube, but only as far as his sketch on how a rocket stove works. The difference between his and our Moto waMvula is that ours allows (what combustion engineers call) primary air to flow up through a 'grate' under the fire. What he sketched allows 'secondary' air to flow over the top of the fire - better than nothing but not as efficient. The Moto waMvula also allows for larger branches to be utilized - if a family is living in the same place for years, all the very small firewood would be long gone; by allowing for the use of branches up to 9cm in diameter and any length, it increases the choice of different sized wood and reduces the amount of time needed to prepare that wood for burning.
Saving the Trees is almost all about cooking efficiency. Growing a new tree from a seedling is a labour of love, to get a seedling to just survive the first 5 years, and then to wait another 40 before it is big enough to utilise. FMNR (or Konzani Mitengo as we call it here) is more reliable, as most stumps survive a great deal better than a seedling. All this effort will be insufficient if we continue to use cook stoves that are 4x less efficient than the Moto wa Mvula. I have to confess that most of my working life as a farmer I grew tobacco, which I cured with firewood. However, very soon after I got back from university, I built a curing system (known as a tunnel) that used one seventh of the amount of firewood as the 'conventional' barns that I had inherited, even though these barns had been upgraded with furnace fans (to provide that all important primary air) and recirculating fans (to improve the air movement through the tobacco leaves). Those tunnels (I eventually built two) gave my trees seven times longer to regrow, than if I had stayed with those barns. They allowed my farm to slowly regain trees; without them I would have run out of trees a long time ago. Hence my focus on developing a cheap, efficient and practical stove.
Thank You for the detailed reply, Bruce.
My main thought had been to find something cheap and accessible, which people might employ easily to improve cooking efficiency. I don't know how readily available cinder-blocks are in your area. That would be the main thing.
I appreciate the attention to detail and the optimization of design process which you described.
I forgive you for growing tobacco, myself... Life is a learning process. ;-)
I have a small rural homestead in the Texas coastal plains, far enough inland to avoid the worst of hurricanes, with good soil, but it is a clay soil, and only some trees will grow, despite my drip system, so I am 6 years into discovery. Until you try something all of your ideas will be great, right?
My vegetable gardens here and in our small, rented Austin place do well without chemicals. An ecosystem develops where the bugs support bug-predators, but it takes a couple of patient years. drjohnsblog.substack.com
I am interested in your work, because in post-peak-oil, it is all of our work.
Thank You, again.
PS: The Limpopo River immediately reminded my of "The Elephant's Child" Kipling book, which I very much liked having read to me as a human child.
The Elephant's Child loved "the gray green greasy Limpopo River".
PPS: The Rocket Mass Heater Builder's Guide: Complete Step-By-Step Construction, Maintenance and Troubleshooting https://www.thriftbooks.com/w/the-rocket-mass-heater-builders-guide-complete-step-by-step-construction-maintenance-and-troubleshooting_erica-wisner_ernie-wisner/11594310/item/16126286/
Bruce's story is amazingly inspiring. Water levels in East Africa are baffling. A recent publication (https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ejrh.2024.101999) suggested (not really explaining why/how) that in recent years EArains seem to concentrate in patches, leaving nearby areas dry. It does look like a "broken" pattern creating a mosaic of extreme hydrologies. I wonder if this could represent a failure of the Small Water Cycle (Kravcik; www.waterparadigm.org) explaining that rains focus more selectively on fewer "acceptor" areas (Makarieva & Gorshkov) rather than being evenly distributed. Too much as well as too little = a farming nightmare. Are we drifting out of Holocene "stability" (Roskstroem)?? Kwaheri from Calabria.
Thanks Nic, I will follow those two links. I have just sent emails to the Zimbabwe Water Authority asking them for flow data on some of their rivers, and to the Limpopo Water Authority (shared by 4 nations) for their flow data on the Limpopo. I would like to see what correlation (if any) there is between the flow of the Zambezi (in the North West above Victoria Falls) and these other rivers, and, if they have the data, between these other, southern rivers. I was recently sent some tree ring data that attempted to estimate rainfall from 1800 to about 1960. The correlation between the trees (good rainfall from1900 to 1920) and the Zambezi (low rainfall) was poor.
Nic I don't really follow Kenyan rain as you are Northern Hemisphere and so a different system, though I do share my ideas with a regenerative livestock farmer in Somaliland. The Small (Terrestrial) Hydrological cycle must still follow the same principles, so it would be worth comparing notes. Peaceydanckwerts@gmail.com will find me. I drove back from Livingstone (near the Victoria Falls) on Thursday and it was heavy rain for most of 150kms - enough to get the streams flowing again, yet my own farm received nothing. I would have expected that my farm is on the edge of an "acceptor" area, and that most of that 150kms was not, so there is always going to be a lot of random data, which will make it very tricky to understand what exactly is happening. But it is networking like this that will help us get there, so thank you
Condensation requires 1st enough evaporative materials vapors in the atmosphere second enough nuclei..dust to energize the formations of clouds leading to precipitation. Find a source of water vapor, even if it is 1000 miles away and secure the wind direction to blow that vapor to enough nuceli/dust particles and wala you get clouds and
rain. Capture the water for long enough times and grasslands will grow, the brush, then forests. Just some thoughts of encouraging nature to solve the problem
Dear Bruce, thank you for your critical analysis of evidence as ever, greatly appreciated and welcome. Regarding record high of the Limpopo river versus low Zambezi river, I can say the following.
First, the Limpopo river drains an area of 0.4 million square km and has a discharge of 14 cubic kilometers/year. The Zambezi river drains an area of 1.9 million square km with a discharge of 117 cubic kilometers/year. (Data from Dai and Trenberth (2002) https://doi.org/10.1175/1525-7541(2002)003%3C0660:EOFDFC%3E2.0.CO;2 , while https://worldinmaps.com/rivers/limpopo/ and
https://worldinmaps.com/rivers/zambezi/ are approximately consistent).
Therefore, it would require a forty times more significant precipitation anomaly (in absolute terms) to change the usual Zambezi's discharge by the same relative amount as Limpopo's. Or, to put it another way, a relative small precipitation anomaly could significantly perturb the Limpopo's discharge while going unnoticed in the Zambezi regions.
Second, the Limpopo basin is on average considerably closer to the ocean than the Zambezi's basin. Global change models consistently predict higher rainfall over the ocean in a warming climate -- I will explain this hopefully in my next post -- largely due to increasing absorption of solar energy as the ice shields melt and a shifting proportion of more latent heat versus sensible heat at constant relative humidity and rising temperature. So this increase in oceanic precipitation can also influence coastal regions but less so the inner parts of the continent. Even deserts occasionally get flooded (because of the positive feedback between precipitation and moisture convergence that I discussed in Biotic Pump Q&A https://bioticregulation.substack.com/p/biotic-pump-q-and-a
Theoretically, increasing water content in the air over the warmer ocean could (at least partially) compensate the decline in biotic pump functioning due to deforestation. That is, the ocean-to-land winds would weaken but those that still arrive to land would carry more vapor. But as I discussed in "We are losing soil moisture, why?" https://bioticregulation.substack.com/p/we-are-losing-soil-moisture-why this is not what appears to be happening and the biotic pump decline does not appear to be compensated.
Thanks Anastassia, that is why I love the Internet, one can so easily get in touch with proper experts. I think your explanation of the Limpopo being so small (compared to the Zambezi) is definitely part of the story. I will have to check your figures, because the flow of the Zambezi that I mentioned is measured at 3 stations above the Victoria Falls, and I am not sure of the catchment at each station. Certainly a small fraction of the 1.9mkm2. Also, my son has just returned from the Okavango Delta, and they are experiencing a higher than usual water level - and that is about as inland as you can get. I am hoping to get historic flow data back from the Limpopo Authority soon, and if I do get some, I will share it here, alongside the Zambezi data. Bruce Danckwerts, CHOMA, Zambia
Dear Anastassia if you have a chance you might like to see what has happened to the former rivers in Siberia. Silicon detention rates are very noticeable and could have a direct effect on all of all Marine life and Effecting large portions of ocean regions, climate etc,
Here is link to Silica studies. https://docs.google.com/document/d/1cWGmah1Pte8aWQ-wV4M4z2VW3dLcBy9hMTE4jMCnVZ4/edit?tab=t.You may already be aware of this
I have converted the talk (that I gave to our Wildlife and Environmental Conservation Society WECSZ in Lusaka) into a .pdf file that you can now read on the Bring Back the Rains page of radio4pasa.com. It is about a 22 minute read, but I hope you will all find it worth the time.