Wow, I just read an article that has me thinking far differently about the water scarcity the world is currently facing and have made up my mind to ensure that I do not waste even a drop of water in future.
The American West has been facing massive tree die-offs due to drought recently and this has left scientists scratching their heads as to the exact cause, how to predict these die-offs and possibly how to stop them, while facing ever-increasing rising temperatures due to climate change.
According to recent study done by a team including Princeton University researchers and published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences this week, trees that are the most resistant to drought are those that can better withstand the stress to their internal water transport system, called xylem, that transports the water from the roots to the crown of the tree.
A tree will normally pull water from the ground into its rots, and then the water inches up, via the internal pipes known as xylem that make up its water transport system, into the trunk and the leaves, to replace water evaporating from the leaf surface.
According to lead author William Anderegg, an associate research scholar in the Princeton Environmental Institute and an incoming assistant professor of biology at the University of Utah, this pulling of water creates tension in the tree that he likened to a spring getting tauter and tauter as the drought continues.
As the water in the ground gets scarcer, the tree must pull harder on the water in the xylem, which allows air bubbles to infiltrate the pipes, causing blockages, or embolisms, thereby clogging the pipes just like a blood clot blocks flow through an artery, resulting in what is “like a heart attack for a tree,” according to Anderegg.
So, the next time you just let water run down the drain, think of those poor trees having heart-attacks and rather collect it and go and water a tree in your garden while thanking it for providing you with oxygen to breathe. Remember, Water is Life, not only for us humans, but for virtually everything on this beautiful planet of ours, so do not waste it!
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