Erica Gies
Author and journalist

Erica Gies

Erica is the author of Water Always Wins: Thriving in an age of drought and deluge, and an independent journalist who covers science and the environment from Victoria, British Columbia, and San Francisco, California. Her work appears in the New York Times, Scientific American, Nature, Ensia, The Economist, bioGraphic, National Geographic, and other outlets.

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Featured stories

Nature

Climate Science and the Case of the Missing Moisture

Expected air moisture is missing over drier areas worldwide, possibly because climate models undervalue the effects of plants and other life. This finding could...
Climate ChangeWater
Nature

More than Carbon Sticks

The concept that planting trees will help mitigate climate change by storing CO2 is too simplistic, ignoring the large effect that plants have on...
BiodiversityClimate ChangeWater
Scientific American

To Revive a River, Restore Its Hidden Gut

Radical reconstruction in Seattle is bringing nearly dead urban streams back to life
BiodiversityConservationSlow Water
Scientific American

A Softer Corps

The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers has uncharacteristically been working with nature instead of bulldozing it into submission. Will this enlightened approach prevail?
Nature

Smarter Ways with Water

To address an onslaught of crises, people must tune into natural ways to repair water cycles that human development has severely disrupted
Climate ChangeSlow WaterWater
bioGraphic

Chennai Ran Out of Water — But That’s Only Half the Story

To reduce flooding and bridge droughts, India’s southern coastal metropolis is using ancient knowledge, community action, and wetlands restoration to harness its monsoon rains.
Popular Science

‘Slow water’ could transform the Southwest, one little rock wall at a time

What if we let water flow where it wants, slowly? More American landowners are joining the nature-inspired movement.
Scientific American

The Radical Groundwater Storage Test

New tactics for capturing floods and surviving droughts could help communities across California and the world.
AdaptationNature-Based SolutionsSlow Water
Mongabay

As logging intensifies forest fires, Wet’suwet’en fight to protect old growth

Members of Wet’suwet’en Nation in British Columbia want to conserve a pristine old-growth watershed, Caas Tl’aat Twah, in its traditional territory. The nation has...
BBC Future

Why Peru is reviving a pre-Incan technology for water

Peru is turning to ancient indigenous techniques and natural ecosystems to keep its taps running, as climate change threatens to dry out its water...
Scientific American

Sponge City Revolution

Restoring natural water flows in cities can lessen the impacts of floods and droughts.
AdaptationNature-Based SolutionsSlow WaterWater
Scientific American

The Meaning of Lichen

How a naturalist’s observations in the wilds of British Columbia inspired a scientist to discover hidden symbioses—overturning 150 years of accepted scientific wisdom.
BiodiversityScience
bioGraphic

Patience, Peace and Persian Leopards

Despite myriad threats, two Kurdish scientists in Iraq are fighting to create a peace park in the heart of the Middle East.
BiodiversityConservation
The New York Times

Restoring Iraq’s Garden of Eden

BiodiversityWater
bioGraphic

Hawaii’s Ancient Aquaculture Revival

In an ocean state that now imports half of its seafood, a determined group of activists is restoring the age-old aquaculture practices of Native...
BiodiversityConservationEnvironmental JusticeFoodIndigenousWater

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