How does forest help in maintaining ground water level?
Answers
It is really a misconception that planting excess of trees can suck the ground water. The things act opposite. We provide plantation services and visit forest and desert area regularly round the year. We observed that in a deep dense forest - whenever rain starts, the rain water takes much time (around 2 to 3 hours) to reach the ground. Even in more dense forest rain water takes 1 full day to touch the ground directly. Question is - Where the water goes? Some tree leaves hold the water and slowly drop it to the ground giving sufficient time to suck the water. Some trees suck water and save it to the ground by adhesion and cohesion method. Due to long evolution processes, Trees developed their own technique to save rain water, while in other open area rain drops splash the ground and flows immediately to the rivers.
So planting more trees can help the ground water to increase.