Rainwater Harvesting for Drylands and Beyond by Brad Lancaster
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Thought Seeds
Follow a more sustainable hierarchy of water management where:
• Rainwater and localized runoff, our on-site water resources, are the primary water source for our landscapes and gardens.
• Greywater is the secondary water source for our landscapes. Greywater is household "wastewater" that drains from sinks, clothes washers, showers, bathtubs, reverse-osmosis water filters, and the condensate from air conditioners.
• Municipal water or groundwater from private wells is strictly a supplementary source for landscapes and only in times of need such as a drought. This is water pumped onto, or pumped up to, our site.” -- Brad Lancaster, "Rainwater Harvesting for Drylands and Beyond"
30% to 50% of the drinking water consumed by the average American or Australian household is used to irrigate landscapes.
The Best-Selling, Award-Winning Books on Rainwater Harvesting
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Rainwater Harvesting for Drylands and Beyond, Volume 1: 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!
Australia/New Zealand customers: save yourself the international postage and request Brad’s books through your local bookstore. If your bookstore doesn’t carry them, ask them to special-order the books from Tower Books, Brad’s Australian distributor.
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!
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| 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. |
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:
Rainwater- and greywater-harvesting tax credits now in effect in Arizona
Arizona taxpayers who install a “water conservation system” (defined as a system to harvest rainwater and/or residential greywater) after January 1, 2007, and before January 1, 2012, may take a one-time tax credit of 25% of the cost of the system (up to a maximum of $1,000). This can be claimed over multiple tax years, but no taxpayer can receive more than a total of $1000 in credits through this program.
Builders are eligible for an income tax credit of up to $200 per residence unit constructed with a water conservation system installed.
For more information on both programs, and to download an application(s), click here.
For more water-harvesting financial incentives around the U.S. and the world go here.
For water-harvesting ordinances promoting water harvesting in Tucson (such as mandating greywater-harvesting stubouts in all new home construction, and commerical developments providing at least 50% of their irrigation needs with harvested rainwater) go here.
Solar Grant Program for Tucson-Area Non-Profits
Technicians For Sustainability (TFS) is offering a Solar Grant Program for Tucson area non-profits who are interested in adding solar systems to their buildings. TFS offers both matching grants and full grants. To qualify organizations must be a registered 501(c)(3) non-profit. Due date for applications is March 1, 2011. More info can be found at tfssolar.com/about-us/community-involvement/
Public Contact Info for Solar Grant Program:
Technicians for Sustainability
(520) 740-0736
info@tfssolar.com
tfssolar.com/about-us/community-involvement/
Corrections? Requests? Suggestions? Questions?
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Drops in a Bucket Blog
Upcoming Events
- 4 September:
- 7 September:
- 9 September:
Also see the full list of upcoming events.