Washington

Clear cutting removes the trees and the plants that form the understory. Their root systems and the soil that they create are the sponge that should retain most of the water. When the trees and the understory are removed, the soil microbes die, and the result is that the soil washes away. Increased tendency of watersheds to flood is the result. The Pacific Northwest has been a land of high rainfall since the end of the Ice Age. The rain forest evolved to cope with and thrive on the rain. Climate change also seems to be playing a part in the increasing flooding. We are getting storm events with much higher rates of rain per hour, too large for the landscape to absorb. The really sad part is that El Nino winters tend to end too early, with the result that we don't get enough mountain snow and rain in the valleys. Combine that with summers which are too hot and long and what we get is more wild fires. This mess is a reinforcing cycle and results in more catastrophic flooding. I think that we need to adopt the forest and land management practices of our local First Nations people in order to heal the damages that exploitative land practices and climate changes are bringing with increasing frequency.