Anastassia Makarieva Speaks About the Ecosystem

From the discoverer of the biotic pump that makes life inland possible.

The Registration of the Presentation given by Anastassia Makarieva at the School of management of cities and the environment organized by the order of the Architects of Cagliari, under the direction of Barbara Moralis. This is a long presentation, almost two hours, but worth watching because Anastassia has an in-depth knowledge of how the ecosystem works that nobody else in the world has. If you can spare two hours, watch this presentation, it may change the way you see the world. Below, a summary and a transcript of the talk, courtesy of Mark Haubner

Anastassia’s blog on Substack:

Anastassia Makarieva Speaks about the Ecosystem

Summary and Transcript created by Mark Haubner

Jul 30, 2025

Summary (ChatGPT)

1

This transcript begins with an introduction to a lecture by Dr. Anastasia Makarieva, a physicist known for her work on the biotic pump and biotic regulation theories, which describe how ecosystems actively maintain favorable environmental conditions. The event takes place in Italy and connects architecture with ecological science, highlighting the importance of understanding natural systems when designing sustainable human environments. Dr. Makarieva outlines her talk, which will cover sustainability in nature, the water cycle, implications for landscape planning, and concluding insights. She critiques the dominant view that life passively adapts to environmental changes and instead presents the biotic regulation theory, which posits that life actively regulates the environment. She supports this with evidence such as the biosphere's capacity to absorb carbon emissions, suggesting that despite human pollution, ecosystems continue to work to stabilize the climate—an insight made urgent by recent unexplained global temperature spikes.

2

The presentation by Dr. Anastasia Makarieva continues to explore the essential role ecosystems—especially forests—play in regulating climate and water cycles. She explains that the dramatic global temperature spike in 2023 is linked not to increased CO₂ emissions but to reduced cloud cover over key ecosystems like the Amazon, Congo, and Canada, which suffered degradation from fires and deforestation. Forests help stabilize temperatures by generating reflective cloud cover through transpiration, a process tied closely to the biotic pump theory. Dr. Makarieva provides evidence from global rainfall patterns, especially in forested regions like the Amazon and Eurasia, showing how forests actively draw moisture inland and even initiate their own rainy seasons. She also discusses how deforestation in Australia around 40,000 years ago* likely led to permanent desertification, illustrating how fragile and pivotal ecosystem dynamics are to maintaining habitability. The biotic pump mechanism is then visually demonstrated with a bottle experiment, underscoring how condensation drives low pressure and pulls moist air inland—fundamental to sustaining rainfall and mitigating fluctuations in the water cycle.

3

Dr. Anastasia Makarieva’s lecture explains how forests actively regulate local and regional climates through the process of transpiration and condensation, which draws in moistureladen air, produces consistent rainfall, and ventilates pollution. She contrasts this with deforested or degraded landscapes, where these processes break down—leading to extreme weather, droughts, heat, and trapped pollution. Real-world examples from Australia, Sardinia, Greece, and Colorado show how ecosystem disruption leads to desertification, while the case of Rajendra Singh in India illustrates successful restoration by retaining moisture in the landscape. Makarieva introduces the concept of a “landscape trap,” a dry-state feedback loop where ecosystems can no longer regenerate themselves due to disrupted moisture cycles. She urges planners to recognize the existence of two distinct ecological states—wet (selfsustaining) and dry (degraded)—to avoid flawed assumptions when managing land and water resources.

4

Dr. Anastasia Makarieva presents compelling evidence that natural ecosystems—especially intact forests—are critical for regulating Earth's climate and water cycles. She explains that forests drive a self-sustaining system known as the "biotic pump," where transpiration and condensation generate local rainfall and draw in moist air, stabilizing temperature and weather patterns. Conversely, degraded landscapes can fall into a “landscape trap,” where planting trees without restoring natural hydrological function worsens dryness. Makarieva highlights how forest mismanagement—even when considered “sustainable,” as in Germany—can quietly erode ecological resilience over decades, leading to sudden collapse under climate stress. Her key message is that effective landscape and urban planning must be rooted in ecological knowledge, prioritizing the restoration and protection of natural vegetation to avoid crossing irreversible tipping points in climate regulation.

5

Dr. Anastasia Makarieva's full presentation emphasizes the critical role of intact natural ecosystems—particularly forests—in regulating climate and the hydrological cycle through mechanisms like the biotic pump. She warns that fragmented, artificial, or degraded ecosystems cannot replicate the self-sustaining climatic benefits of natural vegetation, especially under increasing climate stress. Through examples like India’s early restoration success and the ecological difficulties of Saudi Arabia’s “Line” project, she illustrates how timing, vegetation type, and regional context determine whether restoration is viable. In urban settings, trees can provide cooling benefits, but only when water is available and green spaces are designed to mimic natural ecosystems. Her central message is that nature is a powerful ally, but only if we preserve and restore it before crossing ecological tipping points—making ecological literacy and biotic function the foundation of planning and restoration efforts worldwide.

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(TurboScribe AI transcript)

(0:00 - 1:31)

(Ugo Bardi) You will find in the following registration of a presentation given by Dr. Anastassia Makarieva of the Institute for Advanced Nuclear Physics in St. Petersburg, Russia. The presentation was given at the School of Management of Town and Territory, organized by the Order of the Architects of Cagliari in Sardinia, in Italy. You might know Anastasia by fame, she is known for her fundamental insights on the functioning of the ecosphere, mainly the biotic pump, which is the mechanism that brings water from the ocean to inland, and the biotic regulation concept, which is about how the ecosystem stabilizes itself, both a very fundamental concepts, which are fascinating, even amazing, and that everyone should know if we want to understand how we can survive in this planet, and they are even relevant for architecture, because architecture is a science, a practice, a set of ideas of how we can live well in an urban, typical urban environment, but the urban environment is very much affected by the total, whole environment, the ecosystem.

(1:32 - 2:13)

This talk is a bit long, I admit it is a couple of hours, so you need to allocate a chunk of your time, but I think it is worth doing, I suggest it very strongly. So, now, Anastasia will be introduced by the organizer of the Management School, Dr. Barbara Moralis, and let's go, and I hope you will enjoy it. And then we can start.

(2:13 - 3:44)

(Barbara Moralis)

Dear Anastassia

It is truly an honor and a joy to welcome you today, among the lecturers of our Master’s program.

Yours is the first female voice to lead a session in this journey, a symbolic gesture, marking not only an opening, but a genuine act of love toward the multiplicity of perspectives and that unique way of seeing the world that women, with sensitivity and courage, bring to scientific thought and the culture of design.

Your presence also seals a long-standing friendship between Russian and Italian culture. A friendship that has crossed centuries of meaningful exchange: from Dostoevsky, who inspired our philosophers, to Gorky, who wrote under the sun of Capri, from musicians, to architects, to scientists. A connection that has always united thought and beauty, rigor and vision, in a shared search for meaning.

But beyond all of this, we are here today above all, to thank you, for the generous intelligence with which you are gently bending your research to speak with cities, with architecture and with the human dimension.

It is an act of care, born of a kind heart.

And, I am sure, it will stay with each and every one of us. So, thak you so much to be with us today and now, dear Anastassia, The floor is yours

(4:26 - 4:58)

(Anastassia Makarieva) Thank you very much, Barbara. For me, it is a great honor and privilege to talk today. So just a moment, can I move my slide? So my name is Anastasia Makarieva, and I have a PhD in atmospheric physics from Leningrad State University, and I work as a senior scientist in Theoretical Physics Division in Petersburg Nuclear Physics Institute in Russia.

(4:58 - 6:01)

I am also an alumna fellow of Institute for Advanced Studies, Technical University of Munich, where we had joined the German-Russian research project on draft mitigation through ecosystem restoration. And I must say that I was born and grew up in, first, then Leningrad, now St. Petersburg, and here you can see the main building of St. Petersburg University, built by a famous Italian architect, Dominica Trezini, who also built some symbolic buildings in our city. So from my very early years, I was exposed to this beauty of Italian architecture, which actually formulated my standards of beauty and urban, how the urban space should be organized.

(6:02 - 6:57)

So it is out of gratitude, and there is deep respect that I'm now talking to you and happy to share my insights. The topic of my lecture will be focused on the role of ecosystems in maintaining water and landscape, which is crucial for any urban environment to persist and to function meaningfully for people. But I will start more generally from the idea of sustainability in nature, because as architecture provides living space for people, so the biosphere, our common home accommodates all living beings.

(6:57 - 9:49)

And so I think that when we make our living space in this bigger home, we absolutely need to know how this bigger home is organized and what makes it favorable for us, such that when we build our living space, we don't undermine those processes and structures that keep the Earth so favorable for human life. So my talk will have like four parts. First will be a more general overview on what we can learn about sustainability from nature.

Then we will focus more specifically on the water cycle. Then we will discuss more specifically what implication does this knowledge have for landscape planning and for creating natural and inviting landscapes and living spaces for people. And then will be conclusions and take away messages.

And as we discussed with Barbara, maybe after the first two sections, we make a small break and then there will be the last two sections and some time for questions. So now we know that we are as a civilization, we are at the turning point that we need to evolve a new ethics of how to care about the Earth, because we can see that in many aspects, the environment that has been hospitable for us is degrading and we are witnessing various processes like droughts and floods and extreme winds and global temperature rise that cause ecosystems to decline, like coral bleaching, and that creates a lot of concern. And so here, looking for this new ethics, we understand that nature, like what we know from our urban spaces, our artificial living spaces, they require continuous maintenance.

(9:49 - 12:23)

Like a modern city is a very complicated, sophisticated environment where many processes take place and which have to be monitored and handled and organized in a clever way, including in transport and dealing with the garbage. And when these control systems fail, we have a cause and the environment becomes uninviting and inapplicable for human life. So the question is, how do natural ecosystems, like in this our bigger home, the biosphere, solve the task of maintaining suitable life conditions, which we know is a very, very complex task.

And here, there are two approaches to how life handles this. And one approach is behind our development as civilization up to this point, it has been dominant and partially responsible for the fact that we are where we are with almost with significantly disturbed biosphere. And unclear prospects.

And this approach has been in stating that Earth is favorable for life just by chance, by lucky chance. So life evolved here by chance and life continuously adapts to any environmental conditions, which changes. Governed by the survival of the fetus, the evolution.

And so there are no special states of the ecosystem that regulate the environment. So environment is suitable for life by chance, it constantly changes and life adapts. And this is another concept that has been emerging in many places of the world, including Russia also where it took the name of the biotic regulation of the environment.

(12:23 - 13:56)

Was it that life itself creates an optimal environment? Like we people create an optimal environment, a beautiful modern city, where we try to keep the living space in a way that is appreciated by us. So we and we invest a lot of efforts to keep it in a shape that we would love. So life creates it's an optimal environment.

And then if there are deviations or disturbances from this environment, then natural consistent are able to compensate for that disturbance and to return the environment to an optimal state. And then, if so, when we disturb and destroy those ecosystems that are the pillars of this big, our big home being favorable for us, when we disturb and destroy them, the environment deteriorates and can ultimately become unsuitable for life. So in this second concept, it is like a different worldview on the importance of life for life itself.

(13:57 - 15:10)

And so let us look how it works in the biosphere, how we can decide that indeed this second emerging view, which resonates with what we can see as the new aesthetics for a new civilization that will emerge after we pass through this coming year. So we know that, and this was established first by a Russian Ukrainian scientist Vernadsky in the beginning of the 20th century, that biospheric processes are the most powerful processes in the environment on Earth. So here you can see in this diagram, you can see approximate numbers that characterize the power of how much carbon the biosphere synthesizes per year.

(15:10 - 16:48)

It is 100 gigatons of carbon per year. So leaves and green leaves and phytoplankton in the sea, they together synthesize about 100 gigatons of carbon. At the same time, other organisms like bacteria, fungi, insects, people, cows, everybody decompose this food. And so we have this cycling of 100 gigatons per year. In comparison, the geophysical flows are very small, like you can see that outgassing of CO2 from the Earth's core is very small, like it is like 10,000 times less powerful than what the biosphere can cycle. And so imagine that we have this enormous power working so we can see how it is working. And we understand that if there is the slightest imbalance in these flows, we will see a major disturbance of our environment. But this doesn't happen. So all these organisms, plants, fungi, bacteria, and animals synchronize their behavior in such a manner that when we don't disturb them, they keep the environment stable.

(16:48 - 18:37)

And now let us think of an experiment, how we could prove to ourselves that indeed it is a giant machine of maintaining our common home suitable for our life. Imagine that we decide to perform such a planetary experiment, and we begin to pollute the atmosphere with something. For example, with CO2. And we will be emitting about 10 gigatons of carbon by burning fossil fuels into the atmosphere. So what we can expect? We can expect that if the biosphere is indeed a major force that maintains the stability of the environment, it will react to this disturbance by trying to absorb excessive carbon and store it in some inactive form, like an organic form in soil or somewhere else. And so, in fact, this is the experiment that we have been doing. Yes, we have been emitting about 10 gigatons of carbon recently per year. And we know from measurements that only about one half of that actually accumulates in the atmosphere. And the natural ecosystems, even though we have disturbed them to a major degree, but still we have a lot of undisturbed natural ecosystems.

(18:37 - 19:22)

They are drawing a major proportion of our pollution, removing it and trying to restore the optimal CO2 concentration that used to be before we started to pollute. And this very costly and very dangerous experiment, so to speak, should be analyzed very seriously. And we should draw this important conclusion that the biosphere is our very strong ally in keeping our environment in a state that is good for us.

(19:22 - 19:57)

So, more recently, we noticed and I think that everybody read in the newspapers that now we have this enormous temperature spike that started in 2023. And that cannot be readily explained by climate models. And this is another line of evidence that shows to us how important the ecosystems are.

(19:57 - 20:44)

And if we look at the global mean surface temperature, it is determined by several parameters, by how much solar energy is received by the planet, how much is reflected back to space, for example, by clouds or by ice or snow cover. And also there is this greenhouse effect that captures some thermal radiation from the Earth's surface and partially redirected back to the surface. So these three components, solar energy, reflectivity and greenhouse effect.

(20:44 - 21:12)

And we know that, so here you can see this temperature spike. I'm sorry if I interrupt you, but they are having problems with the translation. Could you check the CC button? No, no, it's okay.

(21:12 - 21:32)

So your language, your speaking language must be English and the subtitle language. Oh, here it is, for some reason it is, it is. Okay, because they are chatting that when I speak, they can see the translation.

(21:32 - 21:58)

Well, yeah. Because your lecture is so amazing, really. Can we try now? Can you see the.

(21:58 - 22:44)

Okay. I think it's my mistake. I apologize because it was the reverse way.

It should have been English. It was Italian. I apologize sincerely.

I don't know how it happened. So just a moment, I will begin sharing again. It's so strange because we tested for two times, Anastasia.

Everything is perfect, but now it's working. I think I could have changed because I was listening to the previous speaker and I wanted to see it. So it's totally my fault.

(22:44 - 23:04)

Yeah, I will see a very creative language because it wasn't English, it wasn't Italian. Okay, I'm very sorry. But then it means that everything was lost, what I was saying.

(23:04 - 23:36)

Okay, now it's perfect. Okay, but anyway. Okay.

(23:45 - 24:03)

It's working. Okay, okay. So I was speaking about the role that natural ecosystems play in keeping our planet habitable and giving examples, just examples that are affecting our everybody's life.

(24:03 - 24:30)

So when we have like 45 degrees Celsius in our streets, we can remember what is actually happening. And so when this temperature spike actually began in 2023, scientists began to decipher what was happening. And actually they established that it was due to reduced cloud cover.

(24:30 - 25:01)

You know clouds, these white puffy things, they reflect a lot of sunlight. So when we remove them, the more sunlight is absorbed by the earth and it warms. And here on this graph to the right, you can see these bright red areas is where the cloud cover was reduced dramatically.

(25:02 - 25:33)

And you can see this, the Amazon, the Congo, and also here over the Canada. And we know that in this year, in the Amazon, there was a very, very terrible drought because the Amazon was degraded by burning for agriculture. And also we had these terrible Canadian fires that also contributed to reduced cloud cover.

(25:33 - 26:10)

And so we can see that when we have disturbed these natural ecosystems, we immediately see a loss of stability of temperature and we see this spike in global warming. So there wasn't any additional CO2 added beyond what we usually emit. So this could only be explained by these disruptions in the functioning of natural ecosystems in different regions of the world.

(26:10 - 26:54)

So we can generalize, like on this graph, when we have a healthy biosphere with untouched healthy ecosystems, our climate is stable. So it is like if we look like a potential pit, so it is the earth is comfortably situated in the range of favorable temperatures. But when we begin to destroy the ecosystems, it doesn't work for some time.

(26:56 - 27:28)

Just a moment, just a moment, something went wrong. Is this so? Well, you could saw maybe. Yes, yes, something went wrong.

(27:28 - 28:02)

So when we destroy the ecosystems, we can see that this potential pit disappears. And so we imagine that we begin to destroy the ecosystems and this potential pit disappears and it becomes the slow becomes steeper. And at a certain point, when we also add CO2, it can push the planet to a state which will be very unfavorable or even prohibitive for our life.

(28:02 - 28:39)

So these recent and less and more well-established lines of evidence show how important the state of natural ecosystems is for our well-being and for the environment and climate. And here we can see that cloud cover, this reflectivity depends on the state of the ecosystems. So most clouds that reflect sunlight occur over forests.

(28:39 - 29:08)

When we replace them by other cover like crops, there is less clouds. And on bare and over urban areas, clouds are less frequent than over forests. So this concept of the biotic regulation of the environment was developed first by Professor Viktor Gorshkov.

(29:08 - 30:01)

And he was the founder of this whole direction of research studying the interactions between ecosystems and environment. So from these more general considerations, now we go to a more specific aspect of environmental regulation, namely how natural ecosystems influence and regulate the water cycle. The water cycle and its decline and fluctuations that we are experiencing are causing more and more concerns, and it also affects strategic planning.

(30:02 - 31:00)

For example, if we look at some trends in desertification, it means that planning large-scale projects like human settlements may not be feasible if we take these trends into account. So when we plan landscape, how we transform the landscape to build a new living space for humans, we need to take into account these trends and what we do to ecosystems, how this may influence these trends. So the question is that if we stand on this position that natural ecosystems regulate environment and climate, then they also have to have options to regulate the water cycle.

(31:00 - 31:44)

And what are the physical floors that allow that, and how does it happen? So here we look at, let us look at the scheme of the water cycle, and we will be building it from blocks like you build maybe a modern building. So first of all, we start from the forest or from some vegetation on land. We know that when plant leaves open their stomata, these small openings to catch CO2 molecules, a lot of water vapor molecules are emitted to the atmosphere.

(31:44 - 32:08)

This is called transpiration. So for one CO2 molecule fixed by the plant, it can be hundreds of water molecules that are emitted into space. So this water vapor, when the air rises and cools, it condenses into clouds.

(32:08 - 32:37)

So these are the clouds that reflect sunlight but also absorb thermal radiation. Then it rains, so a cloud water turns to rainwater and we have rainfall. And then this rainfall, it feeds back the vegetation and also runs back to the ocean with a stream flow.

(32:38 - 33:06)

The forest acts like a sponge, but the sponge leaks because land is elevated over the ocean. And so we can say that land is continuously losing moisture due to gravity. So there must be a reverse process that will bring moisture back to the forest and to land and to all life on land.

(33:06 - 33:30)

And this occurs via the atmosphere. So moisture evaporates from the ocean, water vapor evaporates from the ocean, winds bring it to land. There it ascends, cools and condenses and precipitates, and then the dry air returns to the ocean.

(33:31 - 34:06)

So this is in a natural and simplified form how the water cycle works. And so the forest has to be able to influence this process such that it compensates its moisture losses to stream flow. So we can see that this is the matter, these small openings in the leave, in the needle in this particular case.

(34:07 - 34:42)

And we can see that this transpiration from leaves, it enriches the atmosphere with water vapor. And when there is a lot of water vapor in the atmosphere, it's the properties of air change and the dynamics change and there is condensation and changes in pressure. And so by moistening the atmosphere, the forest can initiate this moisture transport.

(34:47 - 35:10)

And we can try to see what is the evidence that forests are indeed active players in the water cycle. And not that just forests grow where there is a lot of rain. So how to tell apart geophysical influence on the water cycle and the influence of forests.

(35:11 - 35:42)

We can try to look at precipitation distribution with distance from the ocean in forested and non forested regions, as you can see in this map. And this is what was done. And what was found is that in non forested regions, precipitation drops very rapidly as you go inland far further from the ocean.

(35:42 - 36:00)

You can see this open symbol. So there is a steep exponential decline. Meanwhile, in large forested regions, precipitation can stay nearly constant over thousands of kilometers inland.

(36:01 - 36:30)

So it looks like here you can see precipitation distribution over Eurasian forest belt. So these are imagine our continent Eurasia and this is approximately 60 degree latitude. And you can see how precipitation is distributed over different seasons.

(36:30 - 37:04)

And you can see that in summer when the forest is active, precipitation is nearly constant over 7000 kilometers. So forest apparently is able to ensure its own precipitation. Meanwhile, in winter you can see when the forest is dormant and there is no transpiration, all precipitation is concentrated over the ocean, you can see, and it doesn't penetrate inland.

(37:06 - 37:28)

It can't penetrate inland. So in this case of the coral forest, we can tell apart the geophysical and biological effects due to the fact that the forest doesn't act, doesn't work in winter. And we can see that there is a sharp difference between how the water cycle works.

(37:30 - 38:02)

Another very important example showing that indeed a forest are active players drawing moisture inland from the ocean comes from the Amazon forest. Here you can also see the same distribution of precipitation in comparison to oceanic precipitation. And you can see that in the Amazon forest all over the year precipitation is higher than it is over the ocean.

(38:02 - 38:35)

So it works to draw moisture inland. And what is important? Why here we can also tell apart geophysical and biological effects? Because if you look at how precipitation is distributed over the globe, so this is the globe, this is the equator, and this is the graph of precipitation. And we can see that there is a maximum near the equator.

(38:35 - 39:01)

And this maximum goes north and south depending on where with the season. Like in summer it is more in our hemisphere, in winter it is more in the southern hemisphere. And as this maximum travels there and back, it brings moist season, wet season to various regions in the world.

(39:01 - 39:45)

But in the Amazon for some reason the wet season starts two months before the arrival of this geophysical peak that is ensured by the ocean. So the Amazon forest drives its own wet season, which is longer and comes two months earlier than the geophysical wet season. And it was found, imagine, this was like a natural mystery, imagine how it happens that when everything else on the planet, on this latitude, is dry, is dry season.

(39:45 - 40:29)

The Amazon forest suddenly makes a wet season, and the researchers found that at this point the Amazon forest makes new leaves. So imagine a dry season, and suddenly the forest begins massively to make new leaves, and they transpire a lot of moisture, and this moisture switches these dynamics, which I was talking to you about. And there is an inflow of moisture from the Atlantic Ocean, and the forest drives its own wet season with its own leaves.

(40:30 - 41:22)

So this is a very remarkable phenomenon, and the Amazon is the mightiest river in the world, so it is a very powerful demonstration of how forests have evolved to really control what happens on land. And another important example, and also I think also very interesting for us as a society on a turning point that we are now, is the example of Australia. Because we all know that now Australia is a very dry continent, almost a desert, except for some small coastal parts, but it wasn't like that.

(41:23 - 42:03)

Even like 40,000 years ago, it was still quite green, it was not a rainforest, but it was quite rich vegetation. And now scientists are finding tree kangaroos, like this creature, which lived only on big trees. So now they are finding their remnants in absolutely dry places, in deserts basically, which shows that quite recently it wasn't a desert, and there was a lot of vegetation and a lot of productivity.

(42:03 - 42:57)

And so when they tested the isotopic composition of various stuff that was found, it was found that approximately 40,000 years ago, approximately coinciding with the appearance of forest humans, there was a drastic drying event. So the continent dried up almost instantaneously on a geological period and never recovered. So the monsoon that used to bring a lot of moisture to the inner lakes of Australia, like Lake Area, which is now a very small pond, it never recovered.

(42:57 - 43:40)

And the biotic pump concept provides a very straightforward explanation, because when the first humans arrived, they were hunting using fire, so they burned vegetation and then hunted the animals that were scared by fire. And also with fire, they made early successional habitats where more useful grasses or herbs grew. And with this fire, they destroyed forests along the coast, and this cut the inner trees from the sea.

(43:40 - 44:38)

And so there was this catastrophe, and the whole continent that used to be lush and green turned into a desert, even though they were very few people at the time, but they were apparently able to induce this large-scale catastrophe. So it shows to us that we need to be really very careful when we do something to natural landscape, because there are tipping points which if we ignore, we can precipitate into very undesirable states. And so I won't, unless there are questions, I won't go into very much detail concerning the physical mechanism of this biotic pump.

(44:38 - 45:14)

But I would like just to show you such that you have a visual image of the pressure drop from condensation that drives this all dynamics. So the idea is that when water vapor rises and condenses, there is a pressure drop and precipitates, there is less stuff in the atmospheric column, the pressure drops, and this draws moist air in. So on this, we can see here this just simple experiment.

(45:14 - 45:40)

So we first fill the bottle with very hot water, such that it becomes warm and contains also a lot of water vapor. So then we will remove this water from the bottle, such that there is only water vapor inside. So now it is a very hot bottle with hot water.

(45:40 - 46:01)

Now we remove this water. So there is only water vapor inside at high temperature, and now the bottle begins to cool. The temperature is dropping and the water vapor begins to condense.

(46:01 - 46:47)

And as it condenses inside the bottle, the pressure drops, and you can see what happens. This drop of vapor pressure, it invites or draws fluid in, and this is what happens when the condensation event is initiated by the forest. And I can tell you that when these corresponding theoretical evaluations were made, it was found that indeed these processes are able to generate a significant amount of atmospheric power.

(46:48 - 47:43)

So the same power, the same condensation effects are also present in hurricanes and tornadoes, and it is possible also to use the same mechanism to understand what is going on. And this also leads us to understand the second role of forests in the water cycle, which is in suppressing the fluctuations of the water cycle. Because the condensation has this positive feedback, like if there is a lot of condensation, a lot of air is drawn in, it brings even more moisture, the condensation is enhanced even more, and this process enhances itself.

(47:43 - 48:30)

And so we can have like tornadoes and hurricanes and wind gusts and very strong rainfall and causing floods, which will be followed by droughts because there will be no moisture left. But when we have forests, they generate gentle rain. It can help everywhere, so it can be a lot of rain, but it won't come in such great amounts, but will be more uniform and more welcoming usual human activities like agriculture or just normal life of humans.

(48:31 - 49:31)

So I think, Barbara, what do you think we could make a small stop here? Yes, of course, maybe, absolutely. We can have it wait 10 minutes, I think it's... And if there are, maybe there are questions I can, like... Yeah, I just asked four questions. Oh, they are quite tired because they didn't ask questions yesterday, too much, and today they did the same with Maritza Carter, the professor, the professor, the user.

(49:58 - 50:18)

The example that you gave us about Australia. It's quite sad because it could be compared with Sardinia Island, because we did the same. We are killing forest.

(50:19 - 51:36)

Yes, I will be talking about this right now. So let's have a 10 minute break. We will start after 5. Is it clear for you? Yes, yes.

(51:36 - 52:00)

I will start a little bit into the next session because it will be more clear how I will give an example and it will be clear how it was achieved, that restoration. So I'm sharing again. Yes, yes, just a moment.

(52:05 - 52:41)

So I'm sharing. So here I would like to bring to your attention the work of Professor Milan

Milan, who was the founder and director of the Mediterranean Center for Environmental Studies. And he, independently from biotic pump studies, he emphasized the role of vegetation in bringing water to land.

(52:42 - 53:07)

And he was saying, like water begets water, soil is the warm and vegetation is the midwife. So soil is extremely important for keeping moisture and vegetation is what brings actually moisture inland. And so we can see this is a picture to the left is from his work.

(53:08 - 53:44)

What happens when we remove vegetation from the coastal zone? Here you can see this is the circulation of breezes. When we have healthy vegetation here on the coast, the air due to transpiration is very wet. And when the air comes from the ocean, it is wet, it condenses and goes high up into the atmosphere.

(53:44 - 54:10)

So there is a lot of energy derived from condensation and there is a high circulation. And then this basically this air circulation goes far to other outside the district. And if we have any pollution here, for example, there can be some industrial facilities here and pollution.

(54:10 - 54:41)

All this pollution is ventilated away with this mighty circulation. Meanwhile, when we destroy the vegetation cover is in this low picture, the air is dry, no transpiration. So the air is dry and it can't, it doesn't have this condensation energy and it can't rise high.

(54:42 - 55:15)

So it rises very little like within 2000 meters and it flows back to over the sea. And all the pollution remains in the region and is recirculated in the region. So basically, we lock all the circulation to this region and we will be with our pollution until a major large scale circulation system like a cyclone comes from elsewhere.

(55:15 - 55:45)

But on a daily basis, there won't be any clearing of local pollution by the large scale circulation. And they will also, as you can see, comparing these two pictures, there is also no rain because the air doesn't rise high and there is no rain. So there is a depletion of the water cycle.

(55:47 - 56:39)

So now, and he was doing this research in the Mediterranean region. So on this he was primarily concerned that this is what is happening to the local and regional air circulation along various Mediterranean coasts. Now, turning to a question that we have from Silvia, are there any other countries beyond Australia that experience drought problems and try to solve them? Indeed, now that these ideas become prominent, there are several projects that are being planned in different regions of the world, including, for example, North Africa.

(56:40 - 57:15)

But I know of one very successful project that was accomplished in India. And you can look up a person called Rajendra Singh, who is also called the Waterman of India. And indeed he was able to restore, like they say, up to five rivers in a semi-arid region that was totally devastated due to mining and other industrial activities.

(57:16 - 57:47)

He invented a certain technology, not technology, but a way of keeping moisture in the landscape. So when there was the wet season, even though the water was very scarce, they were collecting all the water that was falling from the sky. They were making ponds and growing plants and improving soil and keeping all this water.

(57:48 - 58:32)

And as they were keeping this water, not allowing it to run down immediately or to evaporate very quickly, they were moistening the soil. And ultimately the landscape began to green, to moisten, and this type of air circulation, like in the second, in the upper picture, was initiated again. So this is a very prominent example of how, indeed, we can somehow reverse the devastation and desertification that occurs when we destroy the vegetation cover.

(58:37 - 59:38)

And so if we look at Sardinia, like this is a small piece of map of Sardinia, and we can see also that this is very relevant to this region also, because we have forests, still some vegetation, but also a lot of urban landscape. And what is also important, when there is transpiration and the sunlight is absorbed by forest, the energy of the sun is spent on evaporation. And that is why the forest, even though it is darker than, say, unforested land, it will be cooler than the unforested land.

(59:39 - 1:00:09)

We all know you go to the forest and there is some relief from fresh air. And so that is why also when we remove vegetation, we immediately elevate local temperature. And that is why when temperature is so high and humidity is low, so there is no condensation is suppressed, and we don't have this air circulation, we don't have these breezes.

(1:00:09 - 1:01:03)

And if, as I know, there are some industrial, like a refinery, for example, which produces some pollution for air, which would be located here, this pollution will be locked in the region because of this lacking or weakened circulation that could be here. If we had more natural forests. Another thing also from the Mediterranean region, which I also saw with my own eyes, because even if I'm a theorist, I always try to get some firsthand experience of the systems that I'm talking about, is on the waters in Greece.

(1:01:05 - 1:01:47)

So this island had used to have quite a rich vegetation cover, including forests. But more recently, it was disrupted by cutting for olive to make place for olive trees, and also by fires as desertification and drying proceeded. And so this resulted in a lack of fresh water, such that they had to build this artificial lake for hundreds of thousands of euros, which wasn't needed previously.

(1:01:47 - 1:02:34)

But now, as the vegetation was reduced, and you can see this as a remaining vegetation, which is scattered with olive plantations, and this used to be a river that was flowing year round all the year. But now it exists like a dry thing and only flushes with water on a certain lake very infrequently. And you can see also soil erosion and such soil doesn't keep water, so it can't keep a lot of water inside.

(1:02:34 - 1:03:00)

And this leads to further desertification and further drying. And the problem is that once you get into this dry state, it is very difficult to get back. So in many cases, it would be extremely difficult.

(1:03:01 - 1:03:35)

Why? I will return to this in a moment. Also, another example comes from the US, from Colorado, where also they have this idea that to have fewer fires, they have to remove native vegetation. So their fire service actually is removing native vegetation to prevent fires.

(1:03:35 - 1:04:31)

But this has the opposite effect, because as vegetation is removed, temperature rises and the fire danger increases, and the whole region dries out also. And one more aspect of all this, that it is easy to blame any change that is going on to global warming. And so, for example, if somebody cuts the forest in some place, and we can see all these processes of drying and reduced water cycle, it is easy to say, oh, it is global warming, and this frees local wrongdoers from responsibility.

(1:04:32 - 1:05:08)

So that is why it is very important to understand what processes are really local, and you can change them as the watermen of India changed back, even though India is also affected by global warming. But still, they didn't say that our dryness is due to global warming. They understood that the dryness is due to the fact that the local vegetation was disrupted, and local ecosystems were disrupted and lost water.

(1:05:08 - 1:06:02)

So when they began to restore that, they were able to get back more rain, and this movement is now growing. And so, it is a very interesting example, indeed, and a very rare one, I must say, of something being done against the destructive tendencies that we are seeing elsewhere. So why when you get into this dry state, it can be difficult to get back? Because as we discussed, moisture transport by the atmosphere depends on condensation.

(1:06:02 - 1:06:48)

So the forest has to transpire water vapor from soil and moisten the atmosphere, such that the dew point is reached, and there is condensation and precipitation, and this causes moist air to flow in. So we can say that this transpiration forest takes something from its soil moisture, which is a precious resource, and it is like an investment. It invents this water vapor into the atmosphere, and it gets, in return, this inflow of moist air that brings even more moisture than was transpired by the forest.

(1:06:48 - 1:08:28)

So it gets a return on its investment, so to speak. But if we get into this dry state, very dry state, and this is a picture from Newham in Saudi Arabia, then imagine that we planted reef, for example, we try to get back to that wet state with circulation, but the air has become so dry that this tree, it transpires, it moistens the atmosphere, but still the air is dry and humidity is still below 100%, and no condensation occurs. So it means that this investment of the tree in terms of water vapor will be lost.

It won't initiate condensation, and it will be just blown away by winds. So in this sense, this state, the ecosystem can be locked in this dry state, and it can be very difficult to get back to the wet state. And we studied it from the water cycle point of view, but interestingly, an independent concept was developed by Australian scientists, and they called this dry state, they called it a landscape trap.

(1:08:30 - 1:10:02)

And what they found is that if you have a forest, which has a natural dynamics, for example, it has fire now and then, like 50 or 60 or 70 years, not very frequently, but you begin to take timber from the forest, to begin to exploit it heavily. Making it like exploited stands like plantations, for example, and in this state, the forest becomes unable to sustain its water cycle. So it gets to this dry and dry state, and it begins to burn more and more frequently.

And ultimately, it is just find itself on the trajectory to complete degradation when there are no seeds, no viable seeds, and the forest is lost. So this is a very, and it happens, it may happen very suddenly. So you had a forest which produced timber, you thought that you imagine managing it sustainably, and then at a certain point, it does, it just doesn't regenerate, it is dried up, and the whole landscape is dead.

(1:10:02 - 1:11:04)

So this was independent confirmation of our studies that we made using other lines of reasoning and using the water cycle data. And therefore, and this is important for landscape planning planners, who people who plan how to manage landscapes, or how to transform landscapes, it is very important to keep this in mind that there are two states, because confusion between these states, that people don't differentiate that there are two states that exist. This causes a lot of confusion, like people looking at the same water cycle on the same forest, draw absolutely different conclusions.

(1:11:04 - 1:11:46)

And you can hear statements, for example, that if we plant trees here, for example, they will just spend all the soil moisture, and the region will be even drier than before we planted trees. And other people say, no, no, we will restore the forest, and this forest will bring us more rain. So there is this clash of opposite opinions concerning one thing, how the forest or tree cover influences the water cycle.

(1:11:46 - 1:12:48)

One opinion is that it will deplete the water cycle, there won't be anything, and this is especially dangerous when there is already a shortage of water. Imagine that you are in an arid landscape, and you have a small river, which barely provides for local needs of the people, and then you come and say, I make a green transformation of the landscape, we plant trees, we make green space, but the people will be scared that these trees will transpire, the moisture will be blown away, and so the river will dry out. And in many cases, indeed, such concerns are justified, because if you are in the landscape trap, it will happen.

(1:12:49 - 1:13:29)

So you plant trees, but nothing, the dynamics is not turned on. On the other hand, if there is, like, we can restore more natural ecosystem, like ecosystem, we can turn these dynamics on, and there will be more rainfall and more streamflow, and everybody will be happy. So we need to have these two possible developments in mind when dealing with the landscape greening especially.

(1:13:29 - 1:14:02)

So, and the example of the first regime, apparently, is a desert. So in the desert, there is no rain, no local rain, and only infrequent rains are possible, which usually are very strong, because they are initiated not by local dynamics, but by some external large scale weather systems like cyclones. That occasionally pass through the region.

(1:14:02 - 1:14:30)

So in a desert, there is infrequent, but very strong precipitation. And if we want to restore, to begin to restore the landscape in such a case, the first thing to be done is to keep this water in landscape. And this is what the watermen of India, Rajendra Singh, was doing.

(1:14:30 - 1:15:00)

So the first thing is to keep those little water that is still coming. On the other hand, like the Amazon and Congo forests and other natural forests, they are examples of the second regime. That more transpiration from trees, like more expenses of water vapor, brings even more moisture with moist winds.

(1:15:02 - 1:15:26)

So, and here you can see how universal is this pattern of forests producing moist air. So this is a picture, a colleague sent from Papua New Guinea. And you can see this mild rising moist air over the forest.

(1:15:26 - 1:16:18)

And this is what prevents strong rains from happening, like when a condensation is uniformly spaced. And this is a similar example of a forest that is tens of thousands of kilometers far from Papua New Guinea, but in summer it works also in the same manner. So it is very important that we differentiate and we understand how the vegetation that we have in landscape, how it works and whether it is natural or is it overexploited and can break and can be disrupted.

(1:16:18 - 1:16:51)

So here you can see another turning to European forests. We know that these forests are heavily managed and they were managed, so to speak, sustainably, especially in Germany, because the Germans like to calculate everything. And so there was a certain culture of forest developed there, which is more than 200 years ago.

(1:16:51 - 1:17:38)

And for 200 years, they were exploiting their forests, taking as much as the forests were regrowing, so maintaining a certain stability as they thought. But it turned out that in 20, 200 years, which is less than the age of a single tree, because we can think that for us people, 200 years is the long term. So we think, oh, we have a sustainable practice of forestry.

It is already 200 years. But in terms of tree lifespan, 200 years can be just half life. So it is on the ecosystem level, it is a very short time.

(1:17:39 - 1:18:12)

And so in 200 years, now that we have this additional disturbance from climate change, suddenly these forests began to degrade. And they are degrading due to the bug beetle, and the bug beetles are destroying spruce trees, and former ways of keeping it under control don't work. So this is just another example that this decline can happen very suddenly.

(1:18:13 - 1:19:11)

So you think that you have a sustainable practice of exploiting an ecosystem, but suddenly it degrades, and it is very difficult to bring it back to life. And what happens when, say, bug beetles destroy the forest? You can see that when there is no transpiration, this is a thermal camera, which records temperature of the surfaces that are photographed. And you can see that here, without transpiration, this is like a usual day in September, not very hot, but the temperature of sunlit surfaces can be up nearly 50 degrees Celsius.

(1:19:11 - 1:20:10)

So when we destroy the canopy and have these surfaces temperature rise very significantly, and we have dryness, and this prevents the ecosystem from recovery. And so we can see that these are European forests, and all forests are exploited in one or another degree, and only here in the north, in Norway, there are unmanaged forests that are more or less wild. And here, if we look at Sardinia, this blue regime of forest usage is called combined objective forestry, which means that wood extraction is a recognized purpose of this management.

(1:20:10 - 1:21:01)

So forests are managed for wood extraction, even if not as intense as, for example, in Scandinavia. So, and the more we take from the forest, the less resources it has to withstand, first of all, to withstand climate change, and second, to perform its regulation of the water cycle. So, and when we say that we only take as much as the forest regrows, it doesn't significantly help the situation, because when the forest, like when you have, imagine a pristine forest, it doesn't grow.

(1:21:01 - 1:21:28)

It is all the time there, some trees die, some trees regrow, but total mass of the forest doesn't change. It is like a big city. If there is no immigration, and there is stable population, some people die, some people are born, but generally there is not necessarily any growth.

(1:21:28 - 1:22:03)

So it can be stability. The same with the forest, but when we remove timber, we destroy the forest capacity to regulate the water cycle and make it vulnerable to change. And here you can see one in the same place.

This is in Austrian and Czech-Austrian border. This is in the beginning of the 20th century. You can see they had already then, they had this plantation.

(1:22:03 - 1:22:42)

This is not natural forest, but forest, spruce forest grow according to the German calculation, how we should grow forest, that they are most productive in a sustainable manner. And here to the right, you can see the result of this sustainable practice in 200 years. So basically those people who started it set up a time bomb that exploded now when we do need this forest to do the environmental regulation for us.

(1:22:42 - 1:23:29)

So actually, when we approach the task of landscape planning, the question of how the ecosystem feels and whether it is healthy, what are the prospects of its development or degradation or restoration are key to the long-term fate of this landscape. And whether people will be happy and flourishing or whether there will be a disaster. So actually, some ecological information and knowledge is essential for landscape planning.

(1:23:30 - 1:24:23)

And so I can just show you a schematic difference between this is an even-aged stand and this is a more natural uneven stage. And they have different structure and function, which we can compare to like different buildings that are one is functional and beautiful and another is degrading and already out of function. So we need to see this through this lens, seeing the functionality of the ecosystem and its capacity to regulate the environment that is suitable for us.

(1:24:25 - 1:25:41)

So this is basically what I wanted to tell. And we go now to conclusions. So what we have learned.

So first of all, we learned that according to the emerging view, which is shared by more and more scientists, natural ecosystems perform a stabilizing impact on the environment and earth's climate. And the natural biosphere has a very high capacity to influence the terrestrial environment and a useful figure to remember that the total productivity of the biosphere, how much organic matter and energy it produces is 100 gigatons per year. And it is 10 times more than anthropogenic emissions of carbon due to fossil fuel burning.

(1:25:41 - 1:26:33)

So it is easy to remember the biosphere recycles 100 gigatons per year, but we emit only 10 gigatons of carbon per year and it accommodates almost half of it. And so it reduces the rate of accumulation of CO2 by almost one half. So we have also seen that ecosystem regulation of the cloud cover is what influences global temperature changes that are now in the newspapers and scientists are struggling to understand what is going on.

(1:26:33 - 1:27:32)

So when we hear about a new temperature extreme or when we experience very high temperatures that impact our health and mood and let us think globally and look at like using, for example, Google. The instruments that are now at everybody's disposal. Look what happens in world's major forests.

Are they suffering? So the well-being of those major forests that are in the Amazon and Congo and in Eurasia it is Russian forest and there is also Canadian forest. Actually, they influence the well-being of all of us. So this is about global temperature regulation.

(1:27:33 - 1:28:16)

So the second thing that we were discussing that forests are key and natural gas systems in general are key for efficient water cycle. So transpiration from forests uses a significant part of solar radiation, like up to 50% of all solar radiation and this condensation moistens the atmosphere and leads to special dynamics. Condensation, precipitation, pressure fall and atmospheric transfer or transport of moisture from the ocean, which is the process called the biotic pump.

(1:28:16 - 1:28:58)

And disrupting this forest cover leads to destabilization of the water cycle, first of all. So we have more extremes, like intense precipitation and then lack of precipitation droughts and high temperatures. And there are tipping points in ecosystem functioning, which can bring the landscape and the ecosystem from a wet regime when more trees means more water coming in to a dry regime, when more trees will mean less water remaining in the landscape.

(1:28:58 - 1:29:57)

And this is very dangerous, this tipping point, because it may have radical consequences for the water cycle regionally. And the takeaway message for landscape planning, and also this is also for urban planning, because urban planning is always within the landscape and the well being of an urban settlement depends on how the environment is in the surrounding landscape. That if we talk about especially coastal zones, the coastal vegetation cover is crucial for local air circulation, for breezes and for pollution removal.

(1:29:57 - 1:31:02)

So when we plan removal of coastal vegetation to replace it with some industrial complexes, this may cause very unintended consequences for the air circulation that have to be anticipated and taken into account. And another thing that is important, that we can't just come to a dry landscape and decide that now we will make it green by planting trees. This is something that it is totally ecologically and environmentally unsound, because just by planting trees when the landscape is in a dry state, we can deplete the local moisture store and makes the situation worse.

(1:31:02 - 1:31:45)

So originally we plant trees and they can grow for a couple of years, but then there will be loss of moisture and aridity may even increase. So we need to take this into account when planning, regreting or restoration of vegetation, all conversely when we remove the vegetation. And so this long term persistence of landscape greening depends on whether we are able to restore something that is more natural vegetation rather than just plantations that don't work.

(1:31:45 - 1:32:40)

And so to conclude, I just want to show you that here in Eurasia, we still have a large belt of natural forests that are located in Russia, where we don't have a lot of roads in these areas and that is why they still survive. And these forests serve as like an ocean on land bringing moisture. And so if we look at the circulation that goes on the so-called jet streams that connect actually all regions of the world like circulation pattern.

(1:32:40 - 1:33:33)

So actually they go over these forest belts. So imagine that a certain weather pattern, for example cyclone or anticyclone, when there is normal situation, it travels regularly on this circumference route. But if we disrupt this forest cover, this transport can stall and we will have what is called, for example, a blocking anticyclone when a weather system will sit in one place and there will be rain for a long time and there will be floods and associated destruction.

(1:33:33 - 1:34:07)

Or conversely, if it is an anticyclone and it will sit in a certain place, there will be enormous warmth drought. And this is all will be due to the fact that the normal flow of the system across the globe is disrupted. So these forest belts are what connects all our weather patterns and we are all interested in their preservation.

(1:34:08 - 1:34:47)

So because weather systems are large scale and what happens locally can be caused by long distance correlation. So what I call you to take into account. So we need to think about our forest as our common legacy and we are all interested in their preservation such that they continue to perform this environmental function for us.

(1:34:47 - 1:36:41)

And therefore, when we are now deciding how to go forward in the face of those challenges that our global society is now facing, it is crucially important to take into account that nature is our powerful ally. Our powerful friend and supporter, once we let it work, let her work and don't disrupt it and don't destroy it beyond a certain threshold that it can resist. So in a nutshell, that's everything that I wanted to share.

Thank you very much. And I'm very welcoming any questions. Thank you so much, Amostasia.

It's quite scared of our future. So any questions, Alex or Hugo or Valeria, do you have any questions? Yes, there is a question regarding India. Yeah, there are two.

One from Manuel Aradaini and the other one from India. Yes, regarding India, as we already discussed it, so it may take like 10 or 20 years in the India example. So like several years and more.

(1:36:42 - 1:36:53)

And it is a progress in restoration project in progress. Progress. It is expanding, but it took like several years.

(1:36:56 - 1:37:24)

Because in their case, it was not like a complete desert. They still had rains and they managed to start this restoration quickly. So they managed to begin the restoration when it was not late yet and there was some rainfall and some vegetation.

(1:37:27 - 1:38:15)

So there is a question. Is there a minimum sized threshold below which a forest is no longer able to activate these ecological processes? You can see it depends on where the forest is located because you see moisture transport comes from the ocean primarily. So if the forest is along the coast, even a small like steep is already close and it can draw moisture a little bit into the inland.

(1:38:15 - 1:38:54)

But if it is like a forest patch, like 10 square kilometers, but far inland in a desert place, it may not be able to draw moisture from the ocean because it is too far. So it all depends on where the forest is. And also, as I also mentioned, it is not just about the size of the forest, but what kind of vegetation it is.

(1:38:54 - 1:39:59)

So natural forest will do more than a plantation. What do you think of the line project in South Arabia? Would it work if they managed to build it? And we were assessing the conditions there and it is probably the hardest place on Earth where you could hope to initiate these dynamics. Because it is really the driest place on Earth and they have one of the driest places and they have like about 20 millimeters per year.

(1:40:01 - 1:40:55)

However, to our surprise, what we learned there, that indeed it is a desert and it seems that there is nothing there, like dead land. But it turns out that this devastation is not even due to lack of rain, but due to the fact that they have overgrazing. Because they have this culture of goats that for the meat to be good, the goats need to walk and they are fed at home, but then they walk around and destroy any plant thing that can be there.

(1:40:55 - 1:41:48)

And when they just began to remove these goats by making fences, they saw a restoration and this desert vegetation began to regrow and it is of course seasonal, but when it comes, some certain little rain, it really flourishes. And also historical data show that in that region, they used to be, like in Australia, they used to be wet conditions and there was vegetation. So in principle, it seems that it is possible that something can be there, but the degradation is so high that I doubt they will do.

(1:41:48 - 1:42:27)

And especially the line project that you are seeing, they are not aiming to restore the ecosystem. They more aim like to use irrigation and to make it artificial. I think it will be very costly and as far as I know, it is like a little bit falling apart right now because many, many actors withdraw their cultural problems because how they do the business.

(1:42:29 - 1:43:02)

So there are many problems, as I know, and I'm a little bit skeptical about the line project. So it is very difficult from ecological point of view. On the other hand, from what we discussed, what is relevant? If they do irrigation, like on this first, when the system is in the dry regime, it can't restore on its own.

(1:43:02 - 1:43:29)

But if you add a lot of irrigation and you just walk the system artificially to this wet state, probably at a certain point it can work by itself, but it will require a lot of investments and a lot of moisture in the beginning. But it is not how they are planning. So I don't think that they will do that.

(1:43:31 - 1:43:48)

It's a product, probably, of our capitalist society. Yes. Unfortunately, it looks like, whether it is a socialist system or capitalist system, we are all destroying nature.

(1:43:50 - 1:44:21)

I'm saying that if nature would be told that we are so different, that some are capitalists, some are socialists, some are communists, she would be sincerely surprised, because for her, we are all doing the same, just destroying, destroying, destroying. Hello, how are you doing? Hello, we are having the first warm days this summer. So we are enjoying.

(1:44:22 - 1:44:26)

In St. Petersburg. In St. Petersburg, yes. You can see, still, sunny.

(1:44:27 - 1:44:52)

I see the sun in St. Petersburg, yes. So I have a question. I'm sorry that I could not listen to the whole talk.

I was interviewed by someone from the US, so I lost about half an hour. And so I don't know why to say it, but I'm speaking in English and this thing is asking me which language I speak. I will say Japanese or so.

(1:44:52 - 1:45:05)

No, Japanese. Japanese is perfect. Alright, so maybe I'm asking something that you already explained, but the question I have is about trees inside cities.

(1:45:06 - 1:45:30)

Because once you know the mechanism by which trees work, you see that they are natural air conditioning systems. That you cannot plant trees inside your living room, but you can plant trees in urban environments. And they will cool the urban environment, called the cities.

(1:45:31 - 1:45:56)

I don't know if you spoke about that, but you could comment on that. It is a good thing. I think it is always a good thing or what? Yes, the more green life we have in the cities, the better, because it is good for many purposes, for our mental health, and also for cooling.

(1:45:57 - 1:46:36)

Of course, the trees will be cooling as long as there is water. So it all comes to the problem whether you have enough water for the trees. Because if you are already running short of water and the city is struggling with the water supply, then if you plant trees, but these are urban trees and they don't run the biotic pump because they are just very few, then you will just deplete this water storage and they will be cooling as long as there is water.

(1:46:37 - 1:47:08)

So there is this problem. But if on the other hand you don't have this water problem and you have enough water from rain, for example, then of course the more trees you have, the better. And another thing is that it is good not just to have just a tree, you know, and stones around it, but make it more natural, a small environment.

(1:47:08 - 1:47:32)

With trees, grasses, flowers, maybe some wildlife, maybe some birds will be living there. So making it mimic a natural environment. And an interesting concept is called something like Milwaukee forest, when they grow a lot of trees in a small place.

(1:47:32 - 1:47:52)

And the idea is that when you plant a lot of different trees very densely, they somehow help each other to grow. And all this thing grows faster. And it actually, I saw such one forest in Boston, in the US.

(1:47:53 - 1:48:21)

It is something really bizarre, a little bit, because such a thick grove, I went into this core and saw that there are some trees that died because other trees overshadowed them. But otherwise this is like a thick wood. And it is interesting also, and for kids, for school children, that there is like a model of a natural forest.

(1:48:22 - 1:48:49)

It can be incorporated in urban landscape. Can I comment? Sorry, just quickly, but in towns in Europe, and also Russia, they planted along the avenues. And I always wonder, where do these trees get their water from? They don't die along the streets.

(1:48:51 - 1:49:36)

Because they take the water from soil, from soil which gets so somewhere, if you just pave everything, pave everything, the water will all run down to the river and then to the ocean, and the trees won't get their water. But fortunately, there are a lot of spaces where there is still water can go to soil, and from there it spreads and the trees get its share of water. But otherwise it is a bad thing if you don't make a space of earth open soil for the tree.

(1:49:38 - 1:50:05)

They seem to survive in our past, but it is like with any age of them. So we need to take care of trees, to sink along their lines, as if we were a tree. Other questions, colleagues? Do you have other questions for Anastasia? We are tired.

(1:50:09 - 1:50:22)

Thank you so much, Anastasia, for your amazing lecture. Thank you very much also for listening. I understand that this could be a little bit far from usual architects.

(1:50:22 - 1:51:03)

Yes, quite far from the area of context that involve architects, but it's not too far, believe me. I can type my name in. Well, that is scary.

I agree with that area. You know, this is scary, but also hopeful, because by using nature as a partner, we can do many things that we won't do on our own. So there is also hope in this perspective.

(1:51:04 - 1:51:36)

Thank you very much. I very much appreciate that you listened through all this talk. Let's keep in touch, Anastasia, for plants.

For example, we have some plants. We are called coastal use plants, for example in Sardinia. And I think that your ideas or the rules that you described today could be integrated into this kind of plants.

(1:51:38 - 1:52:14)

Okay, I am always ready to be in contact. As I said, I have a deep connection to Italian architecture and to Italian culture. And Uga knows he also educated me on something which I treasure very much.

So I look forward, and I'm always very happy to contact. Thank you so much, Anastasia. So let's keep in touch on Monday, okay? Okay, okay.

(1:52:14 - 1:52:22)

I would like you an email. Thank you, Uga.

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*From DuckAI

Australia experienced significant deforestation around 40,000 years ago primarily due to climate change and the arrival of humans, who used fire to manage and modify the landscape. This combination of environmental shifts and human activity led to changes in vegetation and the loss of forest cover. The Guardian University of Cambridge

Deforestation in Australia 40,000 Years Ago

Human Impact

• Early humans arrived in Australia around 65,000 years ago and began using fire to manage landscapes.

• Aboriginal communities likely used fire to clear dense forests, creating open spaces for hunting and gathering.

• This practice of "cultural burning" altered vegetation patterns significantly.

Climate Change

• During this period, Australia experienced significant climate changes, leading to drier conditions.

• These changes affected water availability and vegetation types, contributing to shifts in ecosystems.

• Increased fire frequency due to climate conditions may have further stressed the environment.

Megafauna Extinction

• The extinction of large herbivores, or megafauna, around 40,000 years ago also played a role.

• As these animals disappeared, the balance of plant life shifted, impacting forest composition.

• The loss of megafauna likely disrupted the ecosystem, leading to further changes in vegetation.

Summary of Factors

FACTOR

DESCRIPTION

Human Activity

Use of fire for land management and hunting.

Climate Change

Shift to drier conditions affecting vegetation and water availability.

Megafauna

Extinction

Loss of large herbivores altering plant life and ecosystem dynamics.

These combined factors contributed to the deforestation and ecological changes in Australia around 40,000 years ago.