Can restoring the water cycle cool land and climate? Scientific basis and property-scale assessment using the EcoDynamics Diagnostic Engine

A review of the science behind water-cycle cooling, with a property-scale method built into the EcoDynamics Diagnostic Engine. It weighs the evidence for local evaporative cooling and land-atmosphere moisture recycling, and reports two indicators, an evaporative cooling score and a local cooling contribution band, tested on a case-study property in South West England.

Can rehydrating land cool it, and at scale, cool the climate? This paper sets out the science behind Walter Jehne’s water-cycle cooling framework and builds a property-scale assessment into the EcoDynamics Diagnostic Engine, the platform behind ecointel.io, which I co-founded and where I am CTO.

The evidence reviewed supports local evaporative cooling and the recycling of moisture between land and atmosphere, while the net temperature response also turns on surface reflectivity, water availability and other energy exchanges; the stronger claim, that water-cycle restoration could offset global warming, is not demonstrated by the evidence gathered here. The method reports an evaporative cooling score and a local cooling contribution band, and is tested on a case-study property in South West England.