Natural Water and Me

---

 Gillian is an independent, creative, determined and practical coach and guide. She is striving to regenerate natural water processes and ecosystem function. Her hope is that water in both the landscape and our lives becomes better understood and managed with respect for its value to all life. Her mission aims also to support the water cycle skills needed for ecological adaptation for food and water security in the future. 

She brings 28 years experience in the ecology, conservation, survey, science, eco-engineering and direction of water and landscapes from source to sea. Applying this across public, consultancy, local authority and charity sectors, she is empowered to help you through your challenges. 

Her experience includes practical land management, river and floodplain restoration, permitting, water quality investigation, eco-engineering, nature-based solutions for water and land issues, and decentralised water retention, as well as leading teams and projects. 

After rejecting the over-engineered solutions coming from the large engineering consultancy firms I was a part of, I have been investing my own resources in understanding solutions that avoid or reduce large, centralised and energy intensive schemes. I have come a long way, with the help of great mentors like Dr Gabriela Dotro on the Nature-based solutions for water and land management course (Cranfield University, 2020) and Michel Thill of Social Landscapes cic through my Permaculture Design Certificate in 2022. 

My yearly attendance at the Groundswell regenerative agriculture festival has continued to inspire me. Soil health through a regenerative means is the way energy, natural cycles and diversity in structure and biology are encouraged and harnessed for the best net yields and resilience. My focus here is on the water cycle and how that intertwines with soil health, vegetation and all regenerative principles, particularly when applied to agriculture. 

My daily approach to natural solutions is always underpinned by the 12 permaculture design principles listed by David Holmgren. A blend of regenerative agriculture, permaculture design principles and agroecology - and we are in the right space for truly sustainable systems to be supported.

Water cycle restoration is a simple way to say that we need to regenerate the healthy natural ecosystem connections through which water flows in all its 4 forms. It connects with every other natural cycle (e.g. life, nutrient, climate, seasonal and carbon cycles). It is the only reason there is life on this planet and we simply have to respect and learn more about the unseen support that it offers everything on this earth. 

As humans, our lives are entrenched in consumption and using resources for our own means, regardless of the natural connections we are breaking, so this is an uphill journey. There are many ways we can make a difference, both in our understanding or awareness and through on the ground actions where we can help magic to happen when the cycle is allowed to start and life comes back.

My journey has brought me into the Water Stories community and I invested my own resources into the Advanced Core Course in 2024 to learn more about bringing decentralised water back into the landscape and become part of an amazing team. I encourage you to visit the WaterStories.com website.

My career turned into a vocation.

I would love to discuss your challenges with water on your landscape (too much, too little, in the wrong place..) and we can co-create a big improvement and continue to learn together.

There are many ways to say this:

• Slow it, spread it, sink it!
• Where water runs, make it walk and where it walks, make it crawl.

Many of our challenges have come from our tendency to get rid of water as quickly as possible; to design the land to drain; to enclose it in a pipe and take it to the sea as quickly as we can. But the natural solution is to allow the rain to soak in where it lands, to rehydrate and rejuvenate the land around it.

Nature knows best, it's been running this algorithm for billions of years. 

If we can support an ecosystem to operate in a natural way by encouraging diversity, allowing natural cycles to play out and the unseen magic of natures' connections do their thing, we will achieve a naturally oscillating balance that stays resilient in the changing climate.

We don't need to cover up nature with concrete infrastructure, we need to embrace it and give it space to thrive and show us what it can really do.

 Water is necessary for everything on this planet, including everything we are and we do. 

Whilst most of the discussions about climate change have focussed on the influence of carbon dioxide, and whilst it is a factor in the greenhouse effect, trying to control it is not the most effective mitigation. 

Water is a key planetary method of cooling and climate regulation and it is also the most effective solution to mitigating and adapting to climate change and regenerating life on this degraded planet.