Permaculture 101: Go With The Flow: Harvest The Rain
By Erin Gallagher
Filed Under Green Living, The Big Picture |
While most humans can live without food for 3 weeks, we will only survive for 3 days without water. Clean drinking water is a natural resource that has the potential to become more scarce than oil and therefore another cause of heated international conflict.
Last week, Permaculture 101 introduced the whole system design approach to living as a method for designing human habitats so that all elements integrate to form a simple, non-wasteful, harmless, self sustaining, productive, efficient system that is essential to having an environmentally responsible lifestyle. A major permacultural design principle is starting simple, so this article delves into the first of many basic components of a healthy system: water.
Collecting the water that falls on a piece of land is not a new idea. Archaeologists believe that inhabitants of Jawa (now North-Eastern Jordan) practiced “rainwater harvesting” in clay-built cisterns as early as 3,000 BC to ensure that their food continued to thrive in times of drought.
The EPA calculates that one third of household water use in the US goes to irrigation; that is 7 billion gallons per day. Of that amount, 50% never gets absorbed into the soil but instead is “lost” to evaporation or runs directly into sewer systems to be treated as “waste.” With the average American family typically using 400 gallons a day, this “waste” water translates into almost $3,000 annually. This money could easily pay off a rainwater harvesting system in just a few months.
Brad Landcaster is a rainwater harvesting expert who lives in Tucson, Arizona and models a truly sustainable lifestyle built on permacultural practice. He explains that directing water flow on a piece of land allows us to see how our world is a closed-loop system; how everything is connected.
This video illustrates his thoughts on the process:
Rain that falls onto your roof can be directed to run into a gutter system that leads to a rainwater collection tank, from there the water can be stored for later use during a dry period on a garden. When the water enters the soil, it allows seeds to germinate and grow into nutritious food. We eat the food, and either directly compost, or feed the scraps to small animals (such as ducks) who replenish the soil with nutrients in their droppings. The re-nourished soil then obtains more water in times of dryness from the rainwater tank and the whole cycle begins again.
There are two basic types of rainwater catchment: roof-catchment and land-catchment. Roof catchment requires a non-toxic (often metal) roof that is sloped to catch water in gutters which lead to a tank. Like this house in Queenland, Australia:
Land-catchment involves creating “earthworks” described in last weeks article that allow water to stay on a site instead of flowing into the sewer system. Landcaster explains this model using a muffin tin. Hold a muffin tin upside down on an angle and pour water over it; the water runs around the mounds and off the tray. Hold the tin right side up and do the same; the water collects in the cup depressions, even if the tray is held at a steep angle. Imagine the depressions are where your trees and gardens are planted and the model immediately makes sense.
The Earth is a closed-loop system, meaning that all water that exists today has been re-cycled since it was created with the formation of the Milky Way (about 12 billion years ago)! Of that water, roughly 1% of it is drinkable and most of that has now been polluted to an unhealthy state.
Population increases in dry desert cities have lowered water tables and drained aquifers to a point where they will never be able to replenish themselves. Ironically, it is in these environments that green golf courses and large swimming pools blanket the landscape. In 2006, the Texas Water Development Board issued a report detailing the “…significant untapped potential to generate additional water supplies through rainwater harvesting….” The results have been an instate tax levy on all rainwater harvesting equipment, $500 rebates on tank purchase and installation with some counties selling rainwater tanks at an affordable $60.
Arizona, New Mexico, and Portland, Oregon operate under similar policies, yet there are some states in the US union such as Colorado where harvesting rainwater is not a legalized practice and tickets are issued for urban collection violation.
In contrast, the Australian Government recently instituted a policy making rainwater tanks mandatory in any new development due to an economic report finding that tanks are more cost effective and energy efficient than building dams or desalination plants. In India, the Government is funding educational workshops in rural and urban areas to teach the value of catching and sharing rainwater:
To develop a complete permacutural system, we must design a lifestyle according to its principles. By focusing on a single natural resource like water, it is easy to observe where we source it from, how much we use, where we direct it, and how many times it can be recycled. Feedback from the cycles in the system come from the money we save on our water bills, the health and abundance of our plants and community interest and participation in our activities. Once we see water management through a permacultural lens, we can slowly add in other components to create an efficiently functioning, healthy living system based on the same simple principles.
Investigate further…. and take action! Here are some great ways to begin:
- Check out next weeks Permaculture 101 article. It covers food production: the second element in the permacultural design of a human habitat
- Get involved with workshops, talks and programs offered by the TreePeople Oranization
- Find out what is happening with the rainwater harvesting movement by visiting the American Rainwater Catchment Systems Association.
- For a list of rainwater harvesting information and resources, materials and suppliers, visit Brad Landcaster’s website, HarvestingRainwater.com
- Check in with permaculture expert Andrew Millison, living in the high desert of Prescott, Arizona
- Research the parallels of the rainwater harvesting movement in India
To go even deeper, check out these publications:
1. Stormwater as a Resource: How to Harvest and Protect a Dryland Treasure, by David Morgan and Sandy Trevathan. www.nmenv.state.nm.us/swqb/Storm_Water_as_a_Resource.pdf
2. Rainwater Harvesting for Drylands, vol. 1: Guiding Principles to Welcome Rain Into Your Life and Landscape, by Brad Lancaster. www.HarvestingRainwater.com
3. A Water Harvesting Manual for Urban Areas: Case Studies from Delhi, from the Centre for Science and Environment, www.cseindia.org
Posted on August 21, 2008 |
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5 Responses to “Permaculture 101: Go With The Flow: Harvest The Rain”
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Brilliant article and what a novel idea…catching and saving water our most precious life giving substance…
Too bad it’s ILLEGAL here in Colorado!
That’s right kids, it is against the law to catch the rain that falls from the sky…
even if your house were on fire.
For more information on the limits on Gray Water usage in Colorado:
http://www.ext.colostate.edu/pubs/natres/06702.html
Terrific article on permaculture and harvesting our rain! I have never enjoyed a shower more than when it was taken with rain water. Its just healthier to drink and have on our bodies. Your hair is soft, no chemicals like chlorine on your skin and gardens can be landscaped to capture the goodness too! It would benefit all of us to urge our states policy makers to support rain water harvesting.
I am so excited to get started building earthworks in my backyard! Brad Landcaster has been here a few times, but I have yet to catch his gig- hope to soon! Luckily I live in Australia and can get heaps of incentives from the Government for anything that saves natural resources from being wasted. Hope the demand from the public can drive your governing bodies to get their act together!
Chezza
Thanks for the introduction of a valuable resource with an ease and simplicity of sourcing, capture and use. You are a valuable resource to eCotimes and our times. Think I will start when I get back home. Any thoughts on reusing old wine Kasks as storage vessels for garden water? They probably are less toxic than recycled plastic rainbarrels.
Cheers
T
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