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Can this, by any chance, be averted by planting eco diverse forests??

The article touches on the cause. Planting trees won't help if you use the available water for other things.

That's true, but once the ecosystem is established, we don't drain water, trees cause rain right?

The natural state of the ecosystem is a desert. We could try to plant trees to help control the moisture in the soil and evaporation, but it would be an artificial ecosystem, propped up by human intervention.

This is a natural state, but also the most degraded state of the ecosystem.

If there was a river, there was either forests or coastal rains. Would not be uncommon to find that the landscape was more humid in just two or three generations ago.

Yes, and trees will produce shadow and store water in trunks but also in leafs and flowers that would be directly available to animals. The effects of dry season would be mitigated, even in a desertic area.

The culture to burn wild plants each year to avoid fire will eliminate the water. Is a vicious circle. Less water in soil equals to more risk of fire, so you start burning the soil, so you have less and less water and you need to keep burning .

You'd have to shut down the over-grazing first.

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