Rehydrating landscapes – The New Paradigm

Within the food production system there is often a focus on getting rid of water rather than retaining it – getting excess water out of the fields or getting rid of wastewater. This is especially true for regions such as the Nordic countries, where good quality water is plentifully available and droughts have traditionally not been a regular problem.

But what if we started rethinking how we interact with the water cycle? By designing our farms and communities to hold more water on the land – rather than piping it away – we could create more reliable, fertile, and climate-resilient systems that benefit farmers, downstream communities, and the planet as a whole.

Some of the key terms related to water retention include the following:

• Sponge planet is a metaphor for an Earth whose land surfaces collectively act like giant sponges – soaking up, storing, and releasing water in a balanced way. Rather than becoming a compacted or desertified “hard planet” where rainfall mostly becomes quick runoff, a sponge planet retains more of its precipitation in soils, aquifers, wetlands, and vegetation. If we rebuild our landscapes to be spongier, we mitigate floods, droughts, erosion, and even sequester more carbon.

• Rehydrating landscapes describes the active process of restoring degraded soils, waterways, and ecosystems so they regain their natural ability to absorb, store, and slowly release water. It often involves reversing historic drainage, compaction, and deforestation. As the land’s hydrologic function recovers, more rain stays where it falls, sustaining plant growth and aquifers.

• Slow water refers to any practice or structure that delays the movement of water across the land surface, giving it time to soak into soils rather than flow rapidly into streams and rivers. By slowing the water, we can reduce erosion, turbidity, downstream flooding, and you boost soil moisture locally.