A municipality plans to plant trees on a bare hillside so that rainwater is held there
A municipality plans to plant trees on a bare hillside so that rainwater is held there. Aditya says planting will help because trees pull the clouds in. The plan is sound — but is his reason sound?
Who do you think is right? Pick one.
The answer: No, it helps for a different reason
Why
Aditya has backed the right plan, and that deserves saying plainly — the hillside will hold water far better with trees on it. But being right about the outcome is not the same as being right about the mechanism, and here his mechanism is the wrong one. Trees do not reach up and draw clouds towards a hill. What they do is work at ground level: roots hold the soil so rain does not sheet straight off bare rock, fallen leaves make a spongy layer that slows the water, and that gives it time to sink in instead of rushing away. Picture rain landing on a bare tin roof versus on a thick doormat. Test: after a shower, look at runoff from a bare slope and from a wooded one — the bare slope's water is brown with the soil it is carrying away. The plan is right, the reason is not: trees hold the water that falls, they do not summon it.
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