Sounds ridiculous on its face, and that is as a practitioner of permaculture. I couldn't really get my head around how it could possibly make even a slight dent against the massive flooding witnessed here.
I haven't seen a list of such measurements from permaculture, but I know it can be used to regreen deserts (as shown in Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Arizona and elsewhere). And I assume permaculture vastly increases water infiltration. Geoff Lawton has videos showing Zaytuna Farm happily surviving drought and flood alike.
If farmers switched from conventional agriculture to some combination of regenerative agriculture and permaculture, most flooding would be prevented. Their own fields would easily infiltrate rain, eliminating runoff that builds up into flooding.
The article mentions that in addition to Pakistan getting double the normal amount of rain, increased glacier melt is filling the Indus river. I assume that in the theoretical situation of all farmers in Pakistan practicing regenerative ag or permaculture, that land on the Indus would flood. But not 1/3 of the country as we're seeing now, and the flooded areas would recover faster.
I went to check the above sentence, and the first hit was this detailed article from Washington State, which analyses Brown's claims in detail, and explains why the scientific community is skeptical of them:
https://csanr.wsu.edu/regen-ag-solid-principles-extraordinar...
Anyway, even if, as Gabe Brown claims, regenerative agriculture is an order of magnitude more effective than expected, and you applied it to 100% of the land in Pakistan, it would still only reduce flooding by less than a foot.
Informally yes, but the scientific way is to use a ring infiltrometer: https://www.fao.org/3/s8684e/s8684e0a.htm -- Basically instead of digging a hole, you pound a pipe into the ground and then fill the pipe with water.
As for agricultural practices being able to change soil composition multiple feet down, trees and tap-rooted plants are very effective at placing large volumes of organic matter at depth. One example, Lacy Phacelia (Phacelia tanacetifolia) is an annual plant that produces a dense fibrous root system that reaches a depth of 4 feet; in the fall the Phacelia plants die, and their roots decompose at depth, creating pathways for water infiltration while also increasing soil organic matter at depth. The same goes with other trees and shrubs. The farmer from the "It ain't much but it's honest work" meme, Dave Brandt, has some really enjoyable presentations on youtube about improving soil composition at depth.
How do you know that?
How deep do roots go? Do worms dig? Do you know?
I do not. But I am not making assumptions
Read From Dirt to Soil by Gabe Brown. He also mentions the first inch (2.5cm) infiltrates in 9 seconds! So his soil drinks up more water in 9 seconds than nearby farms do in an entire hour.
> was this a carefully controlled experiment?
NRCS water infiltration tests.
His neighbor's farm floods, his land soaks it up like a sponge.
Year-on-year his topsoil gets deeper.
They have three problems when used as carbon sinks:
1) They tie up land for one, otherwise, non productive purpose (the wild species living in them do not mind that, must be said)
2) Once fully grown they reach a carbon balance. This can happen surprisingly quickly, a few decades.
2) Forests do not simply sit there like a rock. Eventually they will burn unless managed. Then they simply release all that stored carbon into the atmosphere.
Regenerative agriculture is a much better carbon sink. The process of storing the carbon increases the soil fertility so it is a win/win. Soils can get very deep so there is not a natural limit like for forests.
A draw back is measuring the carbon sunk. I do not know of anybody doing that (a market opportunity?). An important part of carbon farming is selling the "carbon credits" (a mad bad and sad idea, but it is a thing) to do that there must be an accepted measure of carbon sequestration, like there is for trees.
AFAIK they also create a more moderate micro climate, reducing soil temperature, retaining humidity and rain while keeping it in the soil, reducing the risk of draughts.
Of course regenerative agriculture is much better but the effort to implement it at a scale is incomparably greater, while it should not be shunned.
Also agroforestry will help with making agriculture possible in larger areas of land.
Not a short term carbon sink only.
In terms of projects whose primary aim is flood prevention / aquifer recharge, John D. Liu, Andrew Millison, and Geoff Lawton all have documented quite a few projects that have been very successful in addressing the problem.
Proof: oceans exist.
The key to the whole thing is if you can slow it down enough so that a sudden deluge over a day/week/month has time to slowly drain out.
Getting water into an aquifer takes time depending on how the soil is, but eventually the aquifer would rise to the surface and you'd have a marsh. Or it would rise higher and you'd have a lake.
In the next 20-30 years I suspect we’ll just moderate total solar irradiance as-needed by injecting moon dust into L1.
The only issue is if there are powerful countries that are actually benefiting from the warming and don’t want to cool it down bit.