After the severe flooding we just experienced throughout Hamilton County, I keep coming back to one question:
What can we do, not just to move water away faster, but to help more of it soak into the ground before it ever reaches our streets, creeks and neighborhoods?
There is no single cause of flooding and no single solution. Extreme rainfall, development, stormwater infrastructure, wetlands, drainage systems, soil conditions and land management all play a role.
But one piece of the conversation that I think we overlook is infiltration, how much rain the land itself is capable of absorbing.
And to understand why that matters, it helps to look at how our landscape has changed.
Think about the Dust Bowl.
Before much of the Great Plains was cultivated, enormous expanses of prairie had been covered with perennial grasses for centuries. Those plants had extensive root systems holding soil together, feeding soil biology and creating pathways for water to enter the ground.
Then millions of acres were plowed.
When severe drought arrived in the 1930s, much of that protective vegetation and root structure was gone. Exposed topsoil dried out, and enormous quantities of it literally blew away.
The Dust Bowl wasn’t caused by tillage alone, the drought was extraordinary, but repeatedly plowing native grasslands left the landscape much more vulnerable when drought and wind came.
We learned a painful lesson about what can happen when we remove living roots and disturb soil structure on an enormous scale.
Water is part of that same story.
Modern agriculture also relies heavily on subsurface drainage tile, especially here in Indiana and throughout the Midwest.
Drainage tile is perforated pipe installed beneath agricultural fields.
And farmers have very understandable reasons for using it.
Corn, soybeans and many other crops don’t grow well when their roots sit in saturated soil. Wet fields can delay planting for days or weeks. Heavy equipment can become stuck or compact wet soil. Crops can suffer from root problems and reduced yields.
Drainage tile allows excess water in the soil to enter underground pipes and move away from the field, usually into a drainage ditch, stream or other waterway.
It has helped make some of the most productive farmland in the world possible.
But water removed from one place doesn’t disappear.
It goes somewhere.
And when drainage systems across thousands or millions of acres are designed to move excess water away from fields, they change how water moves through an entire watershed.
Instead of all of that rainfall slowly soaking into the landscape, being held by soil and vegetation, evaporating, or being used by plants, some of it is moved through drainage systems toward ditches, creeks and rivers.
That does not mean drainage tile is “bad,” nor does it mean farmers should simply stop using it. Many fields could not reliably produce crops without drainage.
But it does mean we need to think about the larger question:
Can we maintain productive farmland while also rebuilding the soil’s ability to absorb, store and slowly release more water?
That is one reason regenerative farming practices have fascinated me so much.
No-till and reduced tillage.
Cover crops.
Perennial grasses.
Keeping living roots in the ground.
Rotational grazing.
Returning organic matter to the soil.
Protecting soil instead of leaving it bare.
None of these practices is magic.
No-till alone will not prevent flooding.
Cover crops will not stop a creek from overflowing during an extraordinary storm.
And farmers cannot solve a watershed-wide problem by themselves.
But collectively, these practices can begin shifting the question from simply:
“How quickly can we get water off this field?”
to also asking:
“How much of this water can we help the soil absorb before it ever needs to leave?”
Imagine millions of acres of farmland functioning a little more like a sponge.
Holding more rainfall where it lands.
Slowing it down.
Allowing it to infiltrate.
Recharging groundwater.
Growing plants.
Building soil.
And sending less water downstream all at once.
And this is where consumers have a role too.
Every dollar we spend on food helps support a particular farming system.
When possible, buy directly from farmers and ask how they manage their soil.
Support farms using cover crops, reduced tillage, no-till, perennial plantings and other practices that keep living roots growing for more of the year.
Support pasture-raised livestock from farmers using rotational grazing and allowing pastures time to recover.
And understand that transitioning farmland to these systems isn’t necessarily simple or cheap.
Farmers may need different equipment.
They may need to purchase cover-crop seed.
They may accept additional management challenges or financial risk while learning a completely different way of farming.
Sometimes improving soil health means making decisions whose benefits may take years to fully appear.
Consumer demand can help make those decisions economically possible.
And we can think about infiltration on the land we control too.
Plant trees.
Plant native plants and deep-rooted perennials.
Replace portions of lawn with vegetation that has deeper, more complex root systems.
Protect existing forests and wetlands.
Consider rain gardens and landscaping that allows water to soak into the ground rather than immediately directing every drop toward a storm drain.
And perhaps most importantly, start asking questions about how our communities manage land and water.
When farmland becomes a subdivision, where will the rainfall that once landed on that soil go?
When vegetation is replaced with rooftops, roads, driveways and parking lots, how will that water be handled?
When wetlands are drained or woods are cleared, what happens to the water they once slowed and stored?
And when we talk about flood control, are we only asking:
“How do we move this water away faster?”
Or are we also asking:
“How can we help the landscape absorb more of it before it becomes runoff?”
Our own little piece of this enormous picture is 111 acres.
That land had been conventionally farmed for generations.
Today, those 111 acres are no longer being tilled.
We are planting, growing, observing and learning what the land can become again.
And one of the most important things I’m learning is that infiltration rates do not change overnight.
Soil that has been disturbed for decades—or generations—doesn’t rebuild itself in one season.
Neither will our farm.
But roots grow.
Organic matter accumulates.
Worms return.
Fungi spread.
Soil biology changes.
Pore spaces develop.
Soil begins forming aggregates again.
And gradually, the way water moves through that soil can change too.
After seeing the flooding our communities just experienced, I think this is a conversation worth having far beyond agriculture.
Because every acre is part of a watershed.
A farm field is part of it.
A pasture is part of it.
A forest is part of it.
A backyard is part of it.
A subdivision is part of it.
A shopping-center parking lot is part of it.
And eventually, the water leaving one person’s acre becomes someone else’s water downstream.
We have spent generations becoming very good at moving water away.
Maybe part of becoming more resilient to the increasingly heavy rains our communities experience is also relearning how to keep more water where it falls.
That will require farmers.
Consumers.
Homeowners.
Developers.
Engineers.
Local governments.
And communities thinking about water not only as something we need to drain away—but as something our soil once had a much greater capacity to absorb.
We have a long way to go.
But we have to start somewhere.
For us, somewhere is these 111 acres. 🌱💧
For the rest of us, it can start with the food we buy, the farmers we support, the land we care for, and the questions we ask about how our communities manage water.
If we want communities that are more resilient to heavy rain, we need more land that can absorb it.
Refrence Links…
https://www.nrcs.usda.gov/conservation-basics/soil/soil-health?utm
https://www.nrcs.usda.gov/sites/default/files/2024-10/Grazing%20Management_SoilHealth.pdf?utm
https://www.nrcs.usda.gov/sites/default/files/2022-09/E528G%20April%202021.pdf?utm
https://pubs.usgs.gov/circ/circ1139/htdocs/effects_of_human_activities_on_t.htm