Rainwater-Harvesting Principles

Even though it is summer and we aren't getting much rain right now, you can still think about rainwater-harvesting and start getting ready now for when the rain and snow does come.  I have been reading Brad Lancaster's website, www.harvestingraingwater.com, a lot lately.  He has a lot of great information and suggestions on how to capture and keep rain water.  One of his practices that I find interesting is how he keeps the water that falls onto his property, on his property.  He encourages others to do the same.  By using swales and berms and by amending your soil so it is more absorbent, you too can keep more of the rain that falls onto your property, on your property.

Here are Brad's Eight Rainwater-Harvesting Principles.  If you want more info, he has two books out as well as his website.  They are all worth checking out.

1.  Begin with long and thoughtful observation.
      Use all of your senses to see where the water flows and how.  What is working and what is not?  Build 
       on what works.
2.  Start at the top-or highpoint-of your watershed and work your way down.
      Water travels downhill.  Start at the top where there is less volume and velocity so it is easier to follow
       the next principle...
3.  Start small and simple.
     Work at the human scale so you can build and repair everything. One thousand small strategies are far
      more effective than one big one when you are trying to infiltrate water into the soil.
4.  Spread and infiltrate the flow of water.
      Rather than having water run erosively off the land's surface, encourage it to stick around, walk around
      and infiltrate INTO the soil.
5.  Always plan for an overflow route and manage that overflow as a resource.
     Always have an overflow for the water in times of extra-heavy rains and use that overflow as a resource.
6.  Maximize living, organic ground cover.
     Create a living sponge so the harvested water is used to create more resources, while the soil's ability to
     infiltrate and hold water steadily improves.
7.  Maximize beneficial relationships and efficiency by "stacking functions."
     Get your water-harvesting strategies to do more than hold water.  Berms or swales can double as high
     and dry raised paths.  Plantings can be placed to cool buildings.  Trees can be selected to provide food.
8.  Continually reassess your system:  the "feedback loop."
     Learn from your work-we begin with the first principle.

I know a lot of this information seems daunting, but Brad breaks things down and takes them one step at a time and makes it seem like a much more manageable way to keep our yards and gardens.  By getting more water to stay on your property, you will be able to decrease your dependency on irrigation in order  to keep your landscape green and healthy.  So think about taking some baby steps toward keeping more rainwater on your property instead of letting it run down the road.