The Best-Selling, Award-Winning Books on Rainwater Harvesting

Rainwater Harvesting for Drylands and Beyond, Volume 1, 2nd ed.: Guiding Principles to Welcome Rain into Your Life and Landscape

and

Rainwater Harvesting for Drylands and Beyond, Volume 2: Water-Harvesting Earthworks

are both now available (Volume 1 for pre-order only), along with Volume 1 in Arabic!

Australia/New Zealand customers: Save yourself the international postage and order Brad’s books through the Permaculture Research Institute’s web store.

Everyone else, click here to order

Turn water scarcity into water abundance! These books show you how to conceptualize, design, and implement sustainable water-harvesting systems for your home, landscape, and community. They enable you to access your on-site resources (rainwater, greywater, topsoil, sun, plants, and more), give you a diverse array of strategies to maximize their potential, and empower you with guiding principles to create an integrated, multi-functional, and water-sustainable water-harvesting landscape plan specific to your site and needs. These books will help bring your site to life, reduce your cost of living, endow yourself and your community with skills of self-reliance and cooperation, and create living air conditioners of vegetation growing beauty, food, and wildlife habitat. Stories of people who are successfully welcoming rain into their life and landscape will invite you to do the same!

The wasteful path to scarcity. The site rapidly dehydrates itself by erosively draining rainwater and runoff away to flood downslope areas and contaminate surface water with sediment. Greywater is lost to the sewer. Costly municipal or well water is pumped in to replace the free water that was drained away. Leaf drop/mulch is also drained away further depleting fertility and water-holding capacity. This leads to a depletion of resources and feeling scared in the city due to the resulting scarcity.

The stewardship path to abundance. This site passively hydrates itself by harvesting and infiltrating rainwater, runoff, and greywater on site, reducing downslope flooding and overall water consumption and contamination. The need to pump in water is greatly reduced or eliminated. Leaf drop/mulch is also harvested and cycled back into the soil and plants further increasing fertility and water-holding capacity. This leads to an enhancement of resources and a bun dance of celebration due to the resulting abundance.

Watch “Free Water,” Andrew Brown’s short film on Brad Lancaster and the potential of planting the rain:

For more related videos, visit:

• This website’s video page

• The Brad Lancaster – Harvesting Rainwater channel on YouTube

• www.DesertHarvesters.org for info (in English and Spanish) on the harvesting and processing of mesquite, palo verde, desert ironwood, and prickly pear

• The DesertHarvesters YouTube channel to view videos (in English and Spanish) on the harvesting and processing of mesquite, palo verde, and desert ironwood

Read Brad Lancaster and Valerie Strassberg’s article, “Fighting Water with Water: Behavioral Change Versus Climate Change”

Click to download  Fighting Water with Water: Behavioral Change Versus Climate Change (PDF format, ~435 KB). Reprinted from Journal AWWA, Vol. 103, No. 6 (June 2011), by permission. Copyright © 2011, American Water Works Association. Permission to reproduce this document is granted for informational purposes only and does not represent or imply approval or endorsement by AWWA of any particular product or service.

Check out Brad Lancaster’s interviews on NPR’s Morning Edition:

Click here to listen to September 17, 2008 interview.
Click here to listen to January 10, 2008 interview.

Listen to a rainwater harvesting song:

Click to hear Rainwater Song, by Leith Kahl, aka Desert Rat, Brad’s favorite banjo-playin’, story-tellin’ activist.

Peruse the bounty of free water-harvesting resources, including:

• Water-Harvesting Images, Video, and Audio
• Rainwater-Harvesting Information and Resources
• Greywater-Harvesting Information and Resources
• Plant Lists/Resources
• Water Harvesting Events, Workshops, and Presentations

Water-related rebates and incentive programs in Tucson, Arizona

List of incentives and rebates for Tucson Water’s residential and commercial users, including rebates for rainwater harvesting, greywater harvesting, and high-efficiency toilets.

Rainwater-harvesting rebate, which can pay you up to $2,000 for water-harvesting earthworks or rain gardens (passive strategies), gutters, cisterns or tanks (active rainwater-harvesting systems), and even consulting and design.

Greywater-harvesting rebate, which can pay you up to $1,000 for a greywater-harvesting system installation.

Watershed Maps of Tucson, Arizona

Use these to make signs of your Tucson neighborhood’s watershed(s).
See an example of such a sign, made of the Dunbar/Spring Washes and Watersheds.
And check out my blog post, Watershed Maps Are Community Maps.

Raindrops Geneva Award 2013

We are pleased to announce the fourth edition of the Raindrops Geneva Award competition: “The Best Poster on the Advantages of Rainwater Harvesting”

The Geneva Award folks are looking for artists – amateur and professional – to create posters showing the uses and/or benefits of rainwater harvesting. Posters can cover any aspect of rainwater harvesting, for example: domestic use, groundwater recharge, agriculture, or risk reduction. The artist should keep in mind that the aim of the competition is to make the general public aware that rainwater can be (and is!) an essential resource. The creator of the winning poster will be awarded 1000 CHF (Swiss francs). The second place poster will receive 600 CHF and third place 400 CHF. The best posters will also be used to help in the important task of promoting the use of rainwater harvesting around the world. This will include exhibitions in the Geneva area and further afield, as well as on IRHA’s printed media and website. Deadline: October 31, 2013.

For rules & requirements, submission information, entry forms, and contact information, visit www.irha-h2o.org/?p=2088.

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