And, converted to units that actually make sense:

  • 1 Inch = 25.4 Millimeter of rain
  • 1 Acre = 4046.85642 Sq. meter of forest/wetland/parking lot
  • 750 Imperial gallon = 3409.569 Liter = 3.409569 Cubic meter of runoff
  • 27000 Imperial gallon = 122744.484 Liter = 122.744484 Cubic meter of runoff

I’d ratio it down to figures per 1 mm or 1 cm of rain, but I’m not sure if it actually scales linearly that way.

  • @roastpotatothief@lemmy.ml
    1•3 years ago

    thanks. i guess to restore the over-grazed land, he could just plough it, then sow something deep routed, and wait one summer?

    and in cities these measurements must be meaningless, because each patch had been dug up so many times, and to different depths, and filled in with different kind of soil and different structures.

    are there more creative options? for example some architect once advocated putting city buildings on stilts. the land (the ground level) belongs to everyone. so it should all be open (sometimes green) spaces. are there any crazy ideas like that to help with urban flooding?

    • @Slatlun@lemmy.ml
      0•2 years ago

      I’ve been away a while, so sorry for the late response. Yeah, you could improve infiltration on compacted pasture by tilling and planting select crops and then fixing the grazing practices that caused the problem in the first place.

      You’re right that soils in cities can be harder to predict because of all the human disturbance. Even so, we don’t usually build our houses in areas with crappy drainage because that would mess with the stability of the foundation. So you can assume that most buildings are surrounded by soils with decent infiltration capacities.

      Crazy ideas for how we could make cites function more like they are a part of the real world (nature)? The stilts one is interesting. We could move deep enough underground to leave room above us, too. There are plenty of ideas out there, some are totally reasonable that won’t get done for this or that reason. There is some actual momentum towards building up instead of more sprawl and including green infrastructure in building codes.

      • @roastpotatothief@lemmy.ml
        1•2 years ago

        Thanks for the answer. I really find this stuff interesting, though superficially it doesn’t sound like it should be.

        Yeah, you could improve infiltration

        Thanks. So there is an easy way to make ruined soil productive again. That’s the answer I was hoping for.

        that would mess with the stability of the foundation

        So the water would rest against the walls, or etch a channel down around the foundation. I never thought of that.

        It all reminds me of this: https://99percentinvisible.org/episode/depave-paradise/

        Don’t get me started on suburban sprawl. It’s so needless and so bad in every way.