A watershed is “that area of land, a bounded hydrological system, within which all living things are inextricably linked by their common water course and where, as humans settled, simple logic demanded that they become part of a community.”
— John Wesley Powell

Political boundaries are arbitrary. Watershed boundaries are real.

Click here for John Wesley Powell’s 1890 map of “the Arid Region of the United States, showing Drainage Districts.”

What watershed, what naturally bounded community, do you live within?
Have you walked, run, biked, danced, kayaked it in a big rain?
Have you watched the water flow, its volume, its quality, its source, and its destination?

I recommend you do. You will better know the Place you live within. You will better know the community to which you are connected, and with which you could connect better still.

Below are examples of how some communities are encouraging the strengthening of this connection.

Excellent watershed maps are available for Oakland and Berkeley, CA, showing current and historic boundaries and conditions.

The even more-elaborate Mannahatta project shows us what Manhattan looked like in its natural state (in 1609) before the city was built.

Watershed Management Group, with TerraSystems Southwest, has made a some great Tucson Basin Watershed Maps.

You can use these resources to make signs that highlight your neighborhood’s or community’s watershed(s). Scroll to the bottom of the page to see the sign we made for my Dunbar/Spring neighborhood and its watersheds (and click on the link below it to download as a jpeg).

Santa Cruz County, in California, is one municipality that places watershed signs where roads cross over watershed boundaries/ridgelines.

This was a follow up to a watershed road-signage project in Sonoma County conceived of by Brock Dolman and the Water Institute, funded by the State Coastal Conservancy, and partnered with the Southern Sonoma RCD. Download the how-to guide: Creek Signs: Guide to Developing a Local Watershed and Creek Signage Program.

These efforts help show the flow, instead of obscuring it within drain pipes and other hidden infrastructure, so we can better celebrate the flow, and enhance it and the watershed by turning draining watersheds into harvesting-water catchments.

For more on how we can do this on our own sites and within our own neighborhoods, read Rainwater Harvesting for Drylands and Beyond, Volume 1 and Volume 2.

For images of examples you can also check out my Water Harvesting Image Galleries.

Also check out Brock Dolman’s excellent Basins of Relations booklet, and while you’re at it check out his wonderful Bioneers presentation. It is on YouTube in three parts: Part one, Part two, and Part three.

This 17" x 16" all-weather reflective aluminum sign was made for $42 at SignAge in Tucson. We provided the pdf image, they made the sign, and we'll post it on the Dunbar/Spring community bulletin board on the southeast corner of 9th Ave and University Blvd.

Click to download the JPEG of this Dunbar/Spring Washes and Watersheds sign.

For maps of major watershed boundaries in North America, Europe, and the globe click here.

Show the flow. Cycle it. Celebrate it. Know it. And as you do, show others the way.

The following three images are installations that I feel show and celebrate the flow. Their beauty lures me in, and invites me to look deeper. See more images in the Contemporary Water-Harvesting Art gallery, part of my website’s larger Water-Harvesting Image Gallery.

And for more how-to information see Rainwater Harvesting for Drylands and Beyond, Volume 1 and Volume 2.

There is a tradition of harvesting rainwater in all human-inhabited drylands of the world where it rains (and a great many wet areas that also experience dry seasons). I’ve been very lucky to have been able to travel to, and learn from, some of them.

Below are three images. One from Israel. One from Jordan. One from India. If you are traveling to any of these countries, I highly recommend you seek these sites out. They are all open to the public, and you can find them via the information I give in the captions of these and many more images in the Ancient Water Harvesting Art image gallery within my Water-Harvesting Images Gallery.

What I find consistent in surviving ancient water-harvesting systems is their beauty and the incredible quality of work. What I am most drawn to is the example set by ancient dryland cultures who strove to harvest and enhance their local waters, their local rainwater, and their local runoff, all while living within the limits of their local waters — in a way that enhanced their watershed community without draining and degrading others. We today have much to learn from that.

These ancient water-harvesting systems typically deposit rainwater into the watershed, which in turn tends to feed aquifers, springs, creeks, and rivers. So over time there is more water. More cycles in the hydrologic cycle, with gravity powering the system.

Modern pumped and piped water systems typically extract water from the watershed, which in turn often drains aquifers, springs, creeks and rivers. So over time there is less water. Fewer cycles in the hydrologic cycle, with fossil fuels powering the system.

See Rainwater Harvesting for Drylands and Beyond, Volume 1 and Volume 2 for more case studies and how-to information on strategies that enhance our watersheds and watercycles.

Brad transporting plants

Years ago at a red light I looked into the car beside me and saw the frowning driver’s hair blowing into the back seat as though she were leaning into a mighty storm. But her windows were up. The gale was coming from her air conditioner — on a beautiful day when an open window could just as easily cool and refresh. Then I coughed, and looked back at her tail pipe spewing out toxic exhaust. I was on a bicycle, and loving the day, except for the coughing. And that’s when the simple realization hit me.

Everything we do, every choice we make, has consequences. And no matter how seemingly simple, they can be profound. We can choose to be and live problems — or solutions.

I realized every time I drove (or mechanically cooled myself) I was directly poisoning air, water, soil, and myself. However, every time I rode my bike, my exhaust was never worse than a flatulent. When I drove my car, I fueled it with toxic gasoline from a distant corporation. When I rode my bike, I fueled me, often with a burrito made from locally grown tepary beans and cooked in my backyard solar oven. A burrito I would’ve eaten anyway now tasted even better.

And that’s the essence of it all. I am much happier and healthier when I get around under my own power than when I drive. I typically do not ride my bike along major streets. Instead, I ride through natural corridors, neighborhoods, alleyways, and along bicycle boulevards where it is visually stimulating and safe; I discover salvageable materials; and see and talk to friends. The journey is often as juicy as the destination, and when I arrive I’m literally zinging with energy.

Driving also directly contributes to increases in traffic and the excessive paving of our communities, which increases the temperatures of and energy consumed within our communities — walking, bicycling, and using public transport reduce all these negatives. Click here for an incredible image showing the space taken up by cars, bikes, and a bus transporting the same number of people.

I sold my car (a cherry 1962 VW crew cab) in 1996, have been gleefully carless ever since, and have greatly reduced my time and distance traveling when commuting. I now average 2,500 bicycled commuter miles per year.

The moment I sold my car, I got an annual raise of over $7,000. The American Automobile Association (AAA) estimates the average American annually pays $8,500 to own, operate, fuel, insure, and maintain the average automobile.

In its report “The True Cost of Driving,” The Santa Cruz County Regional Transportation Commission estimates it costs $1.19 per mile to drive a vehicle (86.3¢ in direct driver’s expenses and 32.9¢ in societal costs). This adds up to $15,496 per year (13,000 miles x $1.19). Calculate your own driving costs here.

Check out Sightline Institute’s great graph (below) on how many hours we work to pay for 15 gallons of gasoline.

From “Oil Addiction Has Never Been More Expensive...For Most of Us” © Sightline Institute; used with permission.

How I do live without owning a car?
I live in a central, mixed-use, pedestrian-scaled neighborhood, a few blocks away from major bus routes, where I can easily get the majority of my needs met within a 3- to 5-mile (1.8- to 3-km) radius. When working in town, I consciously select work that is closer to home to keep my typical in-town travel radius smaller and more easily bikeable, although I do venture much further out on occasion. And I started playing with the bicycling lifestyle long ago while I still lived with my folks in their “remote” suburban home 10 miles from my work. Plus I’m always advocating for more human-powered transport infrastructure and policy in my community and beyond.

Having sold my car, it is now far more convenient to ride a bike, walk, or take public transport than to arrange to borrow a vehicle. Convenience is key. And even when I’m feeling tired at the beginning of a ride, once I get going (and afterward) I am always glad I did.

I have an Xtracycle Free Radical Cargo Loader that extended my 20-year-old mountain bike so I can use it as a bike truck. I can pack 200 lbs (90 kg) on its back, carry people, other bikes, building materials, trees, groceries, and more. Before I had my Xtracycle I just used my mountain bike with bike bags, a big basket, and when needed, a bike trailer. Photos of the trailer, made from salvaged materials, can be seen farther down in this blog post.

Note: Xtracycle now offers a much stronger bike frame made just for them by Surly — it’s called the Big Dummy. If I were to start all over again, knowing how much I love to haul a lot of quirky, heavy stuff, I’d get the Big Dummy instead of the lighter-duty Free Radical Cargo loader.

I have a second bike as back up, just in case I wake up late to a flat tire or the like. This back-up bike is a used Bike Friday, a foldable bike which I sometimes put in a suitcase and which becomes a bike trailer when I travel to super bike-friendly destinations such as Portland, Oregon, home of the Village Building Convergence and the World’s Largest Naked Bike Ride.

A friend, David Omick, rides his Bike Friday every other year from Tucson to Corvallis, Oregon. The Bike Friday can be carried onto a bus, and also easily adjusts for a wide range of heights of riders (Art Ludwig put a super long seat post and quick-release seat-post clamp on his old bike for the same purpose). I take my Bike Friday or other bikes on my Xtracycle when I pick up friends and family from the airport, bus station, or train station. We take a scenic route home, hitting taco stands along the way, thus everyone I’ve picked up has always been grateful for the pick-up adventure.

I live in a household and a community where we talk and share. I live with my brother and sister-in-law who own a small truck, which I can borrow at times of true need. And if that truck is not available, I can call on a number of neighbors to borrow their vehicle or convince them to go with me (hiking from a distant trailhead, for example). When I do have the use of a car/truck, I pack in as many errands as I can that require one (usually picking up heavy stuff). I try never to ride empty, but  instead to plan trips and fill it up. I put more gas into the borrowed vehicle than I use, often filling the tank, so the lenders benefit and feel good lending to me again in the future.

We have extra bikes and bike parking at home so when people come to visit we can lend them bikes and we can all ride together, rather than drive, to local destinations. I also conduct bicycle tours of local sustainability, water-harvesting, and regenerative design sites and projects. I lend out bikes for these tours, and if needed we can rent more bikes for just $5 per day from BICAS, three blocks down the street.

For out-of-town trips I try to take Amtrak whenever possible (the station is a 15-minute walk from home), but I can also take the bus (a 25-minute walk from home), plane (1 hour bike ride from home, which juices me before a long trip and revives me after one), carpool, rent a car from a friend, or rent a car from a car rental service (5-minute walk from home), hitch hike, get a ride from Craig’s List, or hop a freight train.

Note: I, and many friends, have found that the first long bicycle or walking commute can be tiring when first switching from driving to bicycling or walking — we’re just out of shape. But then it just gets easier and funner. After just one or two weeks of daily bike riding and/or walking, the body is adjusted, happy, and in shape.

The Big Carbon Picture
Living a solution such as using a bicycle as the primary mode of transport is easy at home, but I find it more challenging when traveling. I’ve been noticing this more and more lately, as I am getting an increasing number of requests to teach and present across the country as well as abroad.

I really struggle with how best to spread the word on water-harvesting and integrated regenerative design/living in a way that does not compound climate change.  And anytime we use fossil fuels we are contributing to climate change and worsening of air, water, and soil quality.

Check out Sightline Institute’s great breakdown (below) of how much carbon is emitted per mile based on mode of transport chosen.

Used with permission from “How Low-Carbon Can You Go: The Green Travel Ranking” © Sightline Institute.

I live in the open, spread out, and often-sprawling western United States where 44% of fossil fuel carbon emissions are from transportation, by far the biggest source of emissions. Electric power is the second largest source of emission (31%), but my home (from which I run my business) is 100% rooftop-solar-powered. Check out Sightline Institute’s great graphics and data (below and to the right) on CO2 Emissions from Fossil Fuels by Sector.

© Sightline Institute — Used with permission.

Although the consequences of carbon emissions may not seem as direct and immediate as breathing in toxic exhaust, I believe they are. I feel we need to take immediate action. The Earth Policy Institute estimates we must reduce our current carbon emissions by 80% by the year 2020.

I don’t think I have the answer for this one (though the Bringing It Back Home section at the end is my best shot at addressing the question), but I’m actively looking for, starting with, and practicing steps that may get me there. I find all steps consciously and proactively taken toward a goal enable me to take the next step, whether I succeed or fail.

So here is what I’m currently trying in terms of long-distance travel:

• I travel in regions. If an event gets me to a certain locale, then I reduce my fee for other hosts in the area who organize events for me. That way I can spread the word more efficiently to more people while I’m there and I don’t have to set up another separate trip to come back. And wherever I go, I try to train other trainers and connect them with the local resources, to enhance and celebrate their abilities, so they will carry on the work in their region, where they are the local in situ experts (I like to call them “inperts”).

• I opt for lower carbon-emitting travel options whenever possible. These typically end up being the most enjoyable and memorable. A two-week hiking trek with my brother from the Grand Canyon to Boulder, Utah, where I needed to get to work for the Boulder Outdoor Survival School was a huge highlight. I also love the train due to its low-carbon footprint compared to plane and auto, and because it is so relaxing. It is cheap; has big seats; lots of space; power for computer and phone; an observation car for stretching, lounging, and conversation; great views; and you stop in the historic heart of every community, built when all was done at the pedestrian scale, so you can step out and venture forth under your own power. I can pick up the train in Tucson (for a fraction of the cost of flying) at 10:30 pm after catching live music at Hotel Congress across the street from the station, fall asleep, then wake up well rested at around 8 am in Los Angeles, CA, in the incredibly beautiful art deco Union Station. In Mexico the buses are phenomenal, and services such as Tufesa could certainly teach Greyhound a thing or two about enhanced comfort, convenience, and reliability. And as with all public/mass transport, someone else is driving so I can work, read, play, eat, sleep as I travel.

• I stay with friends, friends to be, and family whenever possible as opposed to staying in motels and hotels. This builds community, is much more fun and social, and the food is way better and more locally sourced. And my hosts typically lend me a bike to get where I need to go, and/or we all bike around together. And if I do end up in a hotel, I take the stairs rather than the elevator for much needed on-the-road exercise, and always put out the Do Not Disturb sign so the sheets and towels are not needlessly changed and washed.

• I am continually revising my books (http://www.harvestingrainwater.com/books/) and website (www.HarvestingRainwater.com), I’m working on getting my books translated in other languages (Arabic (http://www.harvestingrainwater.com/books/volume-1-arabic-edition/) is the first, now working on Spanish) and I’ve started filming videos and conducting talks in DVC format, so the information can travel instead of me.

• Whenever I travel, my hosts or I pay a carbon offset to an organization, The Local Trust, that utilizes the offsets locally in Tucson. This recurringly links me and others to the consequences of our actions, while enhancing the local economy and ecosystem, and doing so where we can check up on the progress and participate.

Bringing it back home
Ultimately, I’m re-prioritizing my life to spend more time at home, exploring and adventuring locally to deepen my understanding and appreciation of home, and pushing to enhance the following:

• the local human-powered transport experience,
• local renewable water (we passively harvest about 100,000 gallons of rainwater and greywater per year in the soil of our 1/8th acre site to enhance instead of deplete the aquifer),
• local renewable power (100% of home and business power and hot water come from rooftop solar panels and a solar water heater),
• local food (we grow food at home with harvested on-site water, and buy from other local growers at farmers’ markets, local restaurants serving locally-grown food, and our  community’s food co-op),
• local air (we avoid polluting the air by avoiding driving as much as possible and not getting power from the burning of coal, and instead grow air-filtering, passive-cooling, food-producing, rainwater-irrigated vegetation at home and in the neighborhood),
• local soil (we compost, rather than throw away our “wastes”), and
• local community with efforts that begin at home (we do much of this with friends, neighbors, and in workshops open to the public) and spread by example.

For more on all this, see my books and website and the resources below.

Bicycle and human-powered transport resources:

Bicycle riding heros

Bicycle transported and powered band
Ginger Ninjas
Their gear/set-up

Swedish climber, Goran Kropp who rode his bike to Mount Everest, climbed it unassisted, and rode his bike home

Pedal People: a worker-owned human-powered delivery and hauling service in Northampton, Massachusetts, area 
Their winter gear

Freewheelin Farm: an organic farm in Santa Cruz, CA, that delivers its CSA shares by bicycle and bicycle trailer

Pedal to Petal Bicycle Compost Pick Up

Bicycle powered theater:
Robert Newman’s History of Oil

Bike Church in Tucson (at the corner of N Granada Ave and W Davis St)

Bike Art
Bike Church in Tucson

Instructions on how to build pedal-powered stuff

Salvaged and repurposed bikes and gear:
BICAS (Tucson)
Bike Church (Santa Cruz)
bike buckets

Utility bikes and cargo bikes:
Cargo bikes and trailer links
Xtracycle
Key Xtracycle accessories to increase load capacity
- Long Loader to keep long loads away from pedals and front wheel
- Sturdy KickBack kickstand/center stand so your bike won’t tip
- How to customize and tip-proof your KickBack kickstand with salvaged handlebars
Metrofiets
Yuba

Bike food/beverage carts:
Beer bike (click here and here)

TFS Solar power and solar hot water company using bikes as transportation

BionX electrical assist motor for bicycles — an electric-assist or -powered bicycle is far more efficient than an electric car — since the electricity is mainly being used to move you, not a heavier car. TFS uses these to help pull 8-foot long bicycle trailers to and from works sites.

Bicycling gear for kids:
iBert Safe T-Seat top tube bike seat for kids — my nephew loves it!
Burly child trailer (check second-hand sports-equipment shops and Craig’s List for good deals on used ones) — can fit multiple kids.

Solar powered bike lights (ones that have worked great for me):
Solar powered headlight by Owleye
Solar powered tail light by Owleye

Bike helmet that lasts

Bicycle oriented bicycle maps:
Bycycle.org

Bike and pedestrian tours of sustainable stormwater sites in Portland, Oregon (clicking will download a PDF map, about 140 KB)

Bicycle and Human-Powered Transport Advocacy Groups:
Living Streets Alliance
People Power

Resources for Greener, Water-Harvesting, Bikeable and Walkable Streets and Public Rights-of-Way:
Chapter 12 of Rainwater Harvesting for Drylands and Beyond, Volume 2
Green Infrastructure for Southwestern Neighborhoods from Watershed Management Group
Water-harvesting traffic calming images
Harvesting street runoff images

Cyclovia — A wonderful event/celebration where miles of whole streets are blocked off to automobiles so they become corridors of 100% human-powered transportation and joy
Tucson Cyclovia

All Souls’ Procession
An incredible non-motorized procession and celebration of over 10,000 people of all ages that is one of the best annual events in Tucson

Pedal Palooza in Portland (Oregon)

Bicycle/Water/Transportation Factoids:

• It takes 97 gallons of water to produce one gallon of gasoline
• One quart of oil can contaminate up to a quarter million gallons of drinking water or cause an oil slick almost 2 acres in size (clicking will download a PDF, about 45 KB)
• It takes 1,851 gallons of water to refine one barrel of crude oil

KEYWORDS: bicycling, alternate modes, low carbon travel, bicycle, cargo bike, human-powered transport resources

This is number six in a series of Drops in a Bucket Blog posts on Brad Lancaster’s water wanderings in the Middle East; this trip led in part to Volume 1 of Rainwater Harvesting for Drylands and Beyond being translated into Arabic, and Brad’s participation in the upcoming International Permaculture Convergence in Jordan this September. NOTE: If traveling to the Middle East, check out this blog series for dynamic projects and sites to check out.

In northern Jordan during the summer of 2009, I was on a mission to document a modern-day Roman-era cistern resurgence. I met with Engineer and Permaculture Project Manager Sameeh Al-Nuimat at the Care International office outside Amman. He was great. He has rural hardworking roots, loves native plants and traditional ways, is very enthusiastic and knowledgeable about whole-system design, and decided we’d begin the day by having an Arabic breakfast with everyone in the office. We all grouped around a very small, low table piled high with hummus, pita, olives, falafel etc, and ate with our hands. What a wonderful way to bring everyone together as the day begins!

The Village of Rainwater Tea
We then made for the water. In the village of Bayudah Al Shrquia there is a long tradition of rainwater harvesting. Roman- and Byzantine-era cisterns abound in both ruin and reuse, with the limestone hills peppered with underground tanks dug into the rock. Many of these tanks have been in continual use since their creation over a thousand years ago, while others have been newly refurbished, funded in part by revolving community loan funds often facilitated by Care International. The cisterns are olla-shaped, and often built below a limestone catchment. A depressed sediment trap just in front of the cistern’s water entrance is usually the only filtration. A boulder with a trap door is put atop the cistern opening so no one falls in.

Villagers covet their rainwater for drinking and cooking, while municipal and trucked-in water is used only for washing and periodic supplemental irrigation. The water truck usually does not come more than once a week — or even just once every three weeks. I saw many systems on this trip and drank lots of sweet rainwater. Many underground tanks simply have a can or bucket on a rope to pull the water up the cistern so it can be carried into the house. Sameeh filled two glasses with cistern water direct from one such can (no complex filtration) and we drank it down — absolutely delicious and revitalizing! For some of the simple, passive filtration used in these domestic systems, see the cistern principles in Chapter 3 of “Rainwater Harvesting for Drylands and Beyond, Volume 1.”

I was also treated to rainwater tea with mint as I interviewed a family about their water-harvesting system. They all loved their system, and had far more trust in their home’s rainwater-harvesting system, which they themselves could manage, than in the intermittent, lower-quality, and less dependable municipal and trucked-in water systems over which they had no control. As they said, “Water you catch you have.”

Sameeh then took me to a new 10,500-gallon (40 m³) cistern being built in the Roman style. The crew of four Egyptian men digging the cistern would lower themselves into the excavation via a rope on a pulley that was supported by a tripod above the hole. I immediately asked if I could go down inside — and did so, to everyone’s entertainment. This was so good! These cisterns are still being built the old way — except for the jackhammer, which now speeds the process along. After excavation, the tank is plastered watertight. This crew builds 35 cisterns a year. In clay soil the excavation takes 8 days; in rock it takes longer. I was thrilled to experience this, and realize that this strategy, this technology never died here, but has continued, and is now expanding again.

Dig a hole, find a cistern.
Next I traveled to other areas of northern Jordan, near Amman (average annual rainfall 10.7 inches or 272 mm — NOTE: such cistern rehabilitation is often not funded in areas that receive less than 7.8 inches or 200 mm annual rainfall) to see similar work by NGOs Mercy Corps and JOHUD. Here new homes are being built at a rapid rate, but there is not the municipal water infrastructure to support them. Instead, rainwater does, thanks to the work of the past.

Ancient cisterns are regularly found when foundations or tree holes are dug for new homes. They are then cleaned out, replastered if necessary, and capped with a concrete ring and steel door. Downspouts from the roof direct rainwater into the tank, and a pump is placed within the tank to direct the water into the home’s plumbing system.

Again, revolving community loan funds (often initiated by Care International, Mercy Corps, or JOHUD) typically fund the restoration of these cisterns. The community decides how to distribute the loans, to whom, for how much, and for what projects. Water harvesting, organic agriculture, women’s empowerment, and composting are typical funded projects — but community empowerment is the ultimate goal, as to receive the grants for loans, the communities must organize, learn to articulate their issues, do accounting, and give everyone equal representation in the decision-making processes.

Mercy Corps alone reports over 1,200 recipients of water-harvesting-project funding in just 2.5 years, with a cumulative total of almost 16 million gallons (60,000 cubic meters) of water harvested. Everyone who receives a system also gets 10 days of training and, after the water tests clean, a key to the cistern. This also helps economically challenged municipalities which currently deliver water at a cost lower than that of treating and transporting it. And it helps the environment because current municipal water and groundwater consumption exceed safe yield, meaning water is being pumped and consumed at a rate exceeding natural recharge. Thus wells and waterways are going dry. The cistern systems do not add to the extraction of dwindling imported/pumped in water.

Harvested rainwater goes further in the communities also implementing greywater-harvesting systems to reuse the rainwater after it has been used for its primary purposes. The rainwater goes further still when those local on-site waters are used to irrigate food that is grown on-site and fertilized with compost (household wastes transformed into another household resource — one that increases the moisture-retaining ability of the soil).

Upping the scale
While these projects were typically at the household scale there is precedent for the community scale. The last stop was the 19th-century Greek Orthodox St. George’s Church in Madaba built atop a 4th century cistern that is so large, and has so many underground channels entering it, that the church now has no clue how large its original watershed was. The watershed seems to include much of the old city — collecting water off the worn cobblestone streets (and the overflow rainwater from the ancient household cistern systems above).

The labyrinth of underground pipes and channels reminded me of the myriad water pipes below all our modern cities and communities. But here in this ancient infrastructure, water was not drained out of the community. Now, however, a whole separate system of pipes imports water at great cost from elsewhere to replace the stormwater that is drained away. Here in northern Jordan the old systems valued and utilized every drop of free, high-quality, local rainwater. For local water was the only water.

And these ancient strategies are needed now more than ever. They were forgotten for awhile, but we are remembering again.

Jordan Valley, Jordan, 2009

One day my guides Mohammed Ayesh of NCARE and Iqbal of JOHUD took me to an oasis.

The village we were in was strewn with garbage, and the soil was bare and severely eroded. Houses were made from concrete brick and whatever materials could be scavenged. Then we saw the oasis: an island of green bursting from the yard’s pallet fence.

A living oasis of green amidst bare soil

This oasis is one of the gardens and orchards planted and maintained by Basma, a Water Wise Woman. Basma was trained in water harvesting, water conservation, composting, gardening, marketing of produce, etc. As with all the Water Wise Women, she now trains other women in her village to spread the knowledge. She has implemented two gardens and orchards that produce half of the family’s food and provide gifts to spread throughout the community. Rainwater, greywater, and municipal water are used for irrigation. Manure from village livestock and home compost are used to fertilize soils.

The entrance to Basma's garden and orchard

I see this as a regenerative investment. Her garden would generally be considered generative, since although it produces an abundance of resources, it would not make it without Basma. But since Basma is training others, they could take over the garden maintenance or create new gardens of their own. If the project succeeds in the long term it will change the local culture. Once it becomes a part of the local culture, it will be a regenerative success, because the planters and stewards of gardens and water will continually be regenerated through the village customs and practices. The garden will then generate other resources, while the garden culture also regenerates the garden via ongoing maintenance and the creation other gardens like it.

Basma has used knowledge of water harvesting, composting, gardening, and other skills to create an oasis in a desert, and teaches other women how to do the same.

This program has wisely focused on women. Here in Jordan they are the direct caretakers of the home and all things food. Thus the garden is a natural extension of existing local practices.

For more on degenerative, generative, and regenerative investments, see Rainwater Harvesting for Drylands and Beyond, Volume 1

Number 4 in a series of Drops in a Bucket blog posts on Brad Lancaster’s and David Eisenberg’s U.S. State Department-sponsored adventures and gleanings in the Middle East

Northern Jordan, April 2009

Throughout northern Jordan we visited dynamic villages that were enhancing their quality of life by recycling water and money as close to their sources as possible.

The money is recycled primarily via revolving community-loan funds. Here is how it works: a village collectively gathers a pot of money, a portion of which is lent out to its villagers to fund projects the village has deemed worthy. The most popular projects are those that recycle water with rainwater-harvesting cisterns and greywater-harvesting systems, while others used their loans to finance composting projects, organic gardens and orchards, and small livestock – all investments that increase local productivity along with the resiliency and sustainability of the village and its natural resources. A villager who receives a loan has two and a half years to pay it back, interest free. The money can then be lent out to yet another villager. The village’s productivity keeps improving with the investments, enabling the village to give itself more loans, continuing the upward spiral of recycled investments that stay in the community. Neither non-locally owned banks nor interest drain off the profits.

Turning $20 into $400 by slowing, spreading, and sinking it like water

The value of these funds is increased even further when it cycles multiple times within the same community. This added boost can be assured by hiring fellow villagers to help with the work or provide locally obtained materials for the projects. For example, when $20 is cycled or invested within a community 20 times (you give it to a local carpenter, who gives it to a local woodsman, who gives it to a local baker, who gives it to a local produce seller, etc.), its effective value is increased to $400 ($20 x 20). But if that $20 were spent in a national or multi-national chain store on imported goods, the bulk of the $20’s benefit in the community would be rapidly drained away, reducing its value in the community to something more like 50 cents, maybe even less. Those 50 cents might go to the local clerk’s paycheck, while the rest would flow to the distant corporate office and distributors.

In the most sustainable of cases, the revolving-loan fund is seeded by the village itself, with each villager chipping in an equal amount of money to create the fund.  But most of the villages I visited got their initial loan-fund monies from grants allocated by such NGOs as Mercy Corps, JOHUD, and CARE International. The conditions that had to be met in order to receive the loan-fund seed money were that the village had to have an equitable means of making community decisions where no family or individual would dominate, and men and women had to have equal say throughout the decision-making process.

The Growing Tank Culture of Whadneh

In the village of Whadneh, as in much of the majority world, municipal water comes to homes and businesses only once a week, and in summer as many as three weeks can pass between opportunities to replenish one’s water supply. In some areas there is no municipal water or too little of it, and water needs to be trucked in. Thus tanks are on every rooftop to catch whatever water they can when the municipal water lines are flowing. That water can then be distributed via gravity to any point below the tank. The Jordanian government even mandates (but does not necessarily enforce) that water tanks must be installed in the base of every building, as well. These tanks are meant for the storage of municipal water, but they can instead (or also) be used to capture roof runoff. A water-tank mentality and culture already exists, so it is relatively easy to shift to the storage of a more sustainable water source – rainwater.

I believe that the inexpensive and distributed capture of on-site water should always precede the very expensive transport of distant water (as in the centralized Red Sea Dead Sea Canal project), especially since harvesting such water often eliminates, or at least greatly reduces, the  perceived need for that distant water and the huge amounts of power and fuel required to transport it.

Water trucks are ubiquitous in Jordan. Their heavy loads rapidly deteriorate roads, their exhaust pollutes the air, and their engines consume scarce fuel. Here one pumps water up to a rooftop tank in downtown Amman.

Ali Flahmohammad Khtatabh, the Imam of Whadneh, proudly showed me the 2,500 Jordanian dinars’ worth (as of this posting, equivalent to over US$3,500) of cisterns the village loan fund had financed at his home and the homes of his children. He was the first in his village to install cisterns, and as its spiritual leader, he made it clear that the harvest of rainwater was in alignment with both the teachings of the Koran and good sense. He was so happy with the cisterns that he kept building more.

Two of Ali Flahmohammad Khtatabh’s cisterns. One in the foreground catches ground-surface runoff for irrigation. The other, below his terrace/porch, captures roof runoff for domestic use.

Pump atop cistern that collects ground-surface runoff

Ali’s family on the terrace. The cistern is below the terrace.

When I asked Ali Flahmohammad Khtatabh which he preferred: rainwater or municipal water, he replied, “Rainwater of course, it tastes better, and it is the water that comes direct from Allah!” What’s more, Ali’s family has far more control over this water than they do over the municipal water supply.

That harvested rainwater then goes even further through its reuse as greywater for irrigation.

Greywater

The vast majority of greywater systems I saw in Jordan directed household greywater via gravity to reed beds: plastic-lined, gravel filled basins planted with riparian reeds. The reeds helped filter the greywater, which was then collected in a plastic barrel from which water could be pumped through a hose to the landscape.

Revolving-community-loan-funded, dark-greywater-harvesting reed bed

Irrigating an olive tree with greywater pumped from the reed-bed system

All household greywater, including kitchen-sink water (“dark greywater” that some consider blackwater due to the greater amount of organic matter it contains), is directed to these systems. The reed beds are used to help treat/filter the kitchen-sink water and its ample fats, organic bits, and soap goop; however, since the reeds are riparian species they tend to consume large quantities of the greywater that might otherwise be used to irrigate less-water-needy fruit trees.

Riparian plants also require a constant supply of water. If a family leaves for a few weeks without leaving the water running, the reeds can die. I saw many reed beds without any reeds. In addition, the barrels collecting the greywater are often a source of odors. When you store greywater in a tank it starts to stink, thus I typically prefer direct discharge of greywater to multiple points of mulched, vegetated soil. And I question both the reliability and cost of operating pumps in low-income communities where the power supply can be as sporadic as the water supply. There seems to be room for improvement on this system.

A Gravity-Fed Greywater-Harvesting Option

I think there is a great opportunity here to experiment with entirely gravity-fed, tankless branched-drain and multi-drain greywater systems. I’d be very interested in how well they’d fare and be accepted. If implemented, these systems would distribute greywater to multiple points rather than to just one. Kitchen-sink water could be directed to separate, smaller systems. We installed one such system in the Palestinian village of Marda in June 2010 – follow this link for photos.

With such multi-point distributed-greywater systems I have often found reed bed infiltration to be unnecessary for kitchen-sink dark greywater, as long as the bulk of the kitchen organic matter goes into a compost bin instead of down the drain, and appropriate soaps are used. (See Chapter 12 of Rainwater Harvesting for Drylands and Beyond, Volume 2 for more on these systems. Visit the greywater-harvesting image gallery on my site for additional photos.)

Kitchen-sink dark greywater being harvested in a mulched and vegetated basin

Worms feasting in soils that receive kitchen-sink dark greywater. The worms feast just under the mulch.

Greywater-Appropriate Soaps and Detergents

Greywater-appropriate soaps can be hard to find in stores outside the U.S. and Europe, but this can change.

Mohammed Ayesh of NCARE, a government agricultural-extension-like organization that supports many of the revolving-community-loan-funded efforts, informed me that Dr Murad Bino, Executive Director for the Islamic Network on Water Resources Development & Management, had worked with a local Jordanian soap manufacturer to develop sodium-free soaps and detergents for use with greywater systems in Jordan (this is necessary since sodium, or salt, is a killer in these alkaline dryland soils). But apparently these soaps are no longer being produced, since the grant that was funding the project has run out. Hopefully production and use can be restarted, this time with a business plan that will keep everything functioning without dependence on grants. There is a huge need. Everywhere I traveled in the Middle East, greywater harvesting is being researched and promoted. The missing link is appropriate, locally made biocompatible soaps, shampoos, detergents, and cleansers.

Banning of Toxic Soap Ingredients

Israel is the first country (to my knowledge) that has gone so far as to ban certain soap ingredients that are harmful to soils. During my 2010 trip to the Middle East I learned that Israel has banned the inclusion of boron in any soaps or detergents sold there. Israel reuses 61% of its wastewater, primarily as an agricultural-irrigation source. The ban was put in place after it was found that boron from soaps and detergents going down the drain before the ban had been killing crops irrigated with treated wastewater.

(Follow this link for more on greywater-compatible soaps.)

Conclusion

If we are to continue as a species, we need to be more conscious of the resources we use (water, power, money, soil, food, etc). Where do we get them from? What do we do with them? Do we degeneratively dispose of them after a single use? Or do we regeneratively cycle them for greater and greater potential of reuse and new life?

Revolving community-loan funds that invest in regenerative systems are an incredible way to do a lot more with a lot less, by reconnecting people with their money-resource flow much like water-harvesting does with the water flow. Link the two as is being done in Jordan, and you have something really juicy!

Number 3 in a series of Drops in a Bucket blog entries on Brad Lancaster’s and David Eisenberg’s U.S. State Department-sponsored adventures and gleanings in the Middle East

Al Absaa, Saudi Arabia, April 2009

At Al Absaa we toured irrigation projects within the largest oasis in Saudi Arabia. Over one million date palms grow here. But the springs that have fed the oasis for generations are going dry. Oil drilling by Aramco has diverted, blocked, or consumed water flows that used to feed the oasis. The city of 1.5 million is also rapidly growing and consuming additional water. This is a story I encounter again and again the world over; this time it just happens to be in Saudi Arabia.

To keep the oasis and the agriculture watered, 75,000 cubic meters of treated sewage per day are directed to the fields. There are 1,500 kilometers of irrigation canals. Every year, 45 kilometers of these canals are converted to sealed or covered canals. Farmers that flood-irrigate get 3 Saudi riyals (one SR equals about US$0.27) per kilogram of their dates. Those that use drip irrigation get 5 SR/kg. Eighty million riyals is being spent to purify irrigation drainage and sewage, which is then blended with spring water from 32 natural springs before being directed into the irrigation system. The sewage from a city 140 km away will also be directed to the oasis by 2010. Nonetheless, the water table continues to drop.

Recycled water directed into the irrigation canals

Pumps used to move the recycled water through the irrigation system

One spring, “The Mother of Seven (Streams),” is now the mother of none. Twenty years ago it stopped flowing on its own. Water must now be pumped. We looked down into the deep hole from which the spring water used to flow. The hole was dripping, but empty.

The pump house and grate over the spring

The spring

Our hosts and guides

Speaking to the father and son mentioned above. Photo by David Eisenberg.

A father and son were swimming in a pool fed by the spring’s pumps. The father told me that the water used to be warmer, that he always swam here as a boy, and was glad his son could do likewise. I wondered if there would be water here for his grandson to swim in.

The oil drilling, along with the rapid growth and consumption made possible by cheap oil, are killing the oasis. In a way, for the short-term, the cheap oil is also extending the life of the oasis by powering pumping and treatment. But this life extension is completely oil-dependent, and there are many problems with pollution caused by the oil consumption. The oasis thrived for hundreds of years requiring no pumps, no power. The water was readily accessible. When the oil runs out, it may be that no one will be able to access the water because there will be no power to run the pumps. Though if the excessive pumping stops, maybe, very slowly, the ground water will eventually rise again.

While, the Saudi efforts to save or at least extend the life of the oasis are very impressive, I couldn’t help but think that more resources should be invested in restoring (and preventing further destruction of) the natural system, rather than just the mechanical.

Palm frond fence. Others in the area were made only of palm fronds – a great reuse of locally abundant materials.

After touring the irrigation system, our enthusiastic, ever-gracious guide Ibrahim lead us to one of the many highlights of the trip – Red Bread or Hasawi bread.

On the front porch of an old roadside shop sat the rotund baker. When we arrived he went to work slapping 12-inch-wide flatbreads up against the inside of a wood-fired oven shaped like an olla. The bread stuck to the side of the oven and when removed was absolutely delicious. It was spiced with dates and fennel — I was in heaven. Not just because of the incredible food, but because this place was old and felt rooted and real. The dates were from just outside the shop. No new, modern glitz. Just great local food. I dreamed that if I were living here, I’d be a daily regular and maybe even an apprentice.

Red bread ready to eat

Red bread being made

See the books Rainwater Harvesting for Drylands and Beyond for strategies that help restore natural water systems. And see the Drops in the Bucket Blog at www.HarvestingRainwater.com for more dispatches from the Middle East and beyond.

By Brad Lancaster, www.HarvestingRainwater.com, ©2010

Number 2 in a series of Drops in a Bucket blog entries on Brad Lancaster’s and David Eisenberg’s U.S. State Department-sponsored adventures and gleanings in the Middle East

Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, April 2009

Most of the water people now drink in Saudi Arabia is desalinated seawater. And there are great costs, among them air pollution from the power plants which burn oil to run the desalination plants. We read articles daily on the many people falling ill from the pollution.

Air pollution from Jeddah power plant that powers desalination plant. Courtesy of David Eisenberg.

The new Saudi Arabia is very dependent on this oil, not only for water, but for the mechanical heating and cooling of the new modern buildings of imported concrete, steel, and glass.

New stand-alone modern high-rise and its conceptual “courtyard” (vertical space in the glass wall) referencing the functional traditional courtyards where people gathered in a passively protected microclimate

Traditional old-Jeddah courtyard created by the shelter of clustered buildings

But the traditional dynamic Saudi culture was borne from surviving and thriving in this hot, dry climate — without oil, imported building materials, or appliances.  We wanted to see the old practices of harvesting water, building with local materials, and passive cooling and heating. So, we headed for old Jeddah.

Old Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, is a gem, and as our guide Sami promised, it is replete with a rich tradition of harvesting rainwater, life, and vernacular architecture. Sami Nawwar was our lively host. He is caretaker of the grand Nasseif House/Al Balad at the core of old Jeddah. Sami is hugely excited about old Jeddah and has been fighting to save it for over 40 years. (Throughout our travels we saw the rapid demolition of the old, earthen or coral, passively cooled, pre-oil sections of cities and towns to make way for imported-resource-dependent modern buildings.)

Nasseif House/Al Balad in old Jeddah, Saudi Arabia

Into the Nasseif House we went. The ceilings are very tall to gain the benefits of passive cooling. Ample shaded windows catch cooling sea breezes. And the walls are made of coral brick interlaced with wooden bond beams, of sorts, every five courses or so to make the building safer in earthquakes. The staircase was built very wide with short steps so horses could easily climb to the top.

Sami, our gracious host. See brown wooden bond beams in the wall behind him. They help stabilize the coral brick walls in earthquakes.

Coral brick

Then evening prayer began and Sami shouted, “Quick, to the top! You must hear the prayers from the roof!” From every direction came the call to prayer, rising and falling like the chaotic roof lines around us. Amazing. As the sun set and darkness fell over the city we had tea on the roof, the cooling breeze refreshing us.

In the heyday of Nasseif House/Al Balad, children would sweep off the roof before the rains, and the rainfall would be directed to downspouts taking the water to the huge basement cistern. All non-human waste was composted or fed to livestock. Human waste went into a septic tank that was cleared once a year, then washed with salt. (I did not find out where the human waste went after being cleared from the septic tank.) [Entry continues below.]

Skyline view #1 from rooftop

Skyline view #2 from rooftop

Skyline view #3 from rooftop

Looking down into the neighborhood from rooftop

Looking out into Jeddah from rooftop

Tea on rooftop

Distant gas flame seen from rooftop

Cistern is below the floor. Note cistern hatch.

Cistern hatch and cistern below

BREAK]
“We’re late, we’ve got to go!” our U.S. State Department chaperones informed us. But Sami had promised he’d take me inside a neighboring cistern. I shot him a look. “Follow me,” he said, and we ran past the group. We rushed out of the building, down the street, and along the old mosque.

Mosque and stores

Dress shop we entered on left

Turning sharply we entered a modern women’s clothing shop, and sped to the back. Sami stopped in front of a dress hanging on a wall and said, “We are here.”

The secret cistern entrance

He then pushed the dress aside, revealing a hidden door. We stepped down into a massive cistern with vaulted ceilings. It was the cistern for the mosque. I was having so much fun. We had entered a hidden world, feeling something like the half floor in the movie Being John Malkovich. It was also further confirmation that every culture with a dry season has a tradition of water harvesting, and Jeddah was no exception. With just over 2 inches (50 mm) of rain a year it was not only possible, but absolutely necessary. [Entry continues below.]

Just a small part of the vast cistern (now used for the storage of clothes) below the mosque

Cistern inlet and outlet in cistern ceiling. Not currently in use.

These cisterns are seldom used today, what with the temporary abundance of plumbed and pumped distilled seawater, but I feel they are a major part of the solution for the past, today, and the future. These cisterns were the water source of the past. And they could be the, or at least a considerable, water source of today and tomorrow. They work on gravity, not pumps. They do not require pipes throughout the city, only pipes from every roof to a tank below. Beneficial redundancy and resiliency. They also reduce flooding.

Jeddah gets little rain, but most of it comes all at once in big downpours. After our visit floods did major damage in Jeddah. Sprawling construction of new buildings and roads is occurring all over, paving ever more of the watershed. Unfortunately the runoff from this new infrastructure (and the old) is now directed to streets rather than tanks. Thus these floods are more human-created than weather-created.

There is a rich history of praying for rain in this dry country, but the management of that rain has been largely forgotten with the temporarily available “cheap” oil and desalinated water. Much of the answer to those prayers lurks under floors and behind dresses, waiting to be remembered.

See Rainwater Harvesting for Drylands and Beyond, Volume 1, for more on this topic. And click here for information about the Arabic edition of Volume 1, released in Spring 2011.

By Brad Lancaster, www.HarvestingRainwater.com, ©2010

I am finally getting to the sharing of my travel gleanings. This is the first of a series to follow – so keep checking back. This piece is from my U.S. State Department-sponsored trip to Jordan and Saudi Arabia in 2009. David Eisenberg of DCAT and I were sent as part of an Earth Day-themed cross-cultural exchange. David spoke about green building. I spoke about water harvesting. The trip was incredible, perhaps most of all due to the face-to-face interactions with Jordanians and Saudis – all of whom were incredibly welcoming, gracious hosts. This breed friendships and sharing, rather than the fear generated by the aggression of politicians and nations and misinformation in the media. My heartfelt thanks to all our Jordanian, Saudi, and State-Department hosts.

April 2009

Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, receives only about 2 inches (50 mm) of rain a year. Being that dry, it was odd that water was flowing down the streets and mosquitoes were fierce.

In this hot and humid coastal desert climate, air conditioners abound and their condensate steadily and wastefully drips into the street, pooling where mosquito populations then mushroom. But on occasion you see a wild matrix of funnels and hoses directing that condensate from coolers to courtyard plantings. Here where rainfall is low, but humidity intense, the potential for condensate and dew harvesting is very high.

Bucket and condensate creek, Jeddah, Saudi Arabia

Hoses directing air-conditioner condensate to courtyard plantings, Jeddah, Saudi Arabia

How much condensate can you harvest?

IN A DRY CLIMATE/SEASON:
• A home air conditioner can generate 0.25 gallons (1 liter) of condensate/day

• A large commercial air conditioner can generate 500 gallons (1,900 liters)/day

IN A HUMID CLIMATE/SEASON:
• A home air conditioner can generate 18 gallons (68 liters) of condensate/day

• A large commercial air conditioner can generate 2,000 gallons (7,500 liters)/day

In the humid climate of Austin, Texas (USA), the condensate from the City Hall air conditioners provides all the water needed for a large waterfall at the City Hall entrance.

Top of the Austin City Hall air-conditioner-condensate waterfall

Bottom of the Austin City Hall air-conditioner-condensate waterfall

Where does your condensate go? If to the sewer drain, redirect it to water-harvesting earthworks and their associated plantings.

Condensate is distilled water. It does not contain salt. Thus it is a high-quality water source. Though there is the possibility of the condensate leaching lead from lead-based solder, if this is used in the cooler’s plumbing, or copper from copper pipes. Air-conditioner manufacturers take note: you can make a cooler without these toxic materials, and then market your appliance as both an air conditioner and a water machine.

Can you harvest condensate in your area? If you have condensate then the answer is yes.

The signs are clear when that harvest is potentially abundant – you sweat like mad and so does your cool drink (condensate beading profusely on your glass).

See Rainwater Harvesting for Drylands and Beyond, Volume 2: Water-Harvesting Earthworks for more on this, including a table helping you estimate your condensate volume.