Rainwater Harvesting for Drylands and Beyond by Brad Lancaster

Water Harvesting Design Certification: Tucson, AZ
2022-02-28 - 2022-03-12
February 28 and March 2, 2022 (virtual)
March 7 – 12 (in person, in Tucson, Arizona)
More info at:
https://watershedmg.org/event/water-harvesting-design-certification-spring-2022

Land and Water Summit - Albuquerque, NM
2022-03-02 - 2022-03-04
On Friday, March 4, 2022 Brad will give the following presentation, followed up with a panel discussion.
Re-hydrating and Re-enlivening Our Communities with Rain-watered Neighborhood Food Forestry
This presentation is about neighborhood forestry efforts empowering citizens, and contractors, to effectively plant the rain and native food-bearing vegetation to grow vibrant and resilient abundance where they live, work, and play. Then train them up and support them with the education, guidance, collaborations, and policy that enable them to better steward the plantings for decades to come. Dramatic results include cooler neighborhoods, healthier eating, a revitalization of indigenous cuisine, deeper connections with people and place, reduced flooding, skill building, greater soil fertility, and more beauty and joy. The strategies and practices are accessible to all and most are free or cost no more than the price of a shovel.
For more details on the summit see:
https://www.landandwatersummitnm.org/

Guided Water-Harvesting Home & Neighborhood Block Tour with Brad Lancaster – Tucson, AZ
2022-03-13 09:00 - 11:00 (America/Phoenix)
WHEN: 9am – 11am, Sunday, March 13, 2022
WHERE: 813 N. 9th Avenue, Tucson, AZ 85705
COST: $12 per person. Must pay/register in advance. No-shows cannot be refunded.
Limited number of spaces. First paid, first served.
SOLD OUT

Come tour with the guy who wrote the books on water harvesting and more!
Brad Lancaster, author of the just released, full-color, revised editions of his award-winning books “Rainwater Harvesting for Drylands and Beyond, Volumes 1 and 2” will guide this tour of he and his brother’s family’s water-harvesting & landscape design award-winning 1/8th-acre urban property and surrounding block of the neighborhood.
100,000 gallons of rain and stormwater is harvested annually on the property and in the adjoining public right-of-way. You’ll see examples of:
• an integrated “tiny house” where a one-car garage was converted into a cottage or “garottage” that passive heats and cools itself for free with well-designed winter sun access & summer shading. 75% of its building materials were salvaged from the waste stream;
• solar cooking, solar water heating, and solar power;
• legal & inexpensive site-built composting toilets, which helped legalize such toilets state-wide;
• organic gardens getting 95+% of their irrigation needs met by harvested rainwater;
• inexpensive gravity-fed rainwater harvesting systems providing safe & delicious rainwater for all domestic needs including drinking – with no expensive pumps or mechanical filtration systems;
• extensive gravity-fed greywater harvesting systems turning “waste” waters into resource waters.
• how a joyous 20 plus-years of car-free life has been possible (cargo bicycle is key), and saves over $8,000 annually
In the neighborhood part of the tour you’ll see:
• water-harvesting traffic-calming features that helped turn a dangerous streets into welcoming bicycle boulevards,
• street-runoff harvesting strategies that use street runoff to freely irrigate street trees and control flooding – and new evolutions and improvements on these strategies
• learn how these once “pre-legal” street runoff-harvesting strategies were legalized, rebated, and mandated
• native food forests doubling as wildlife and pollinator corridors that canopy over public foot paths,
• how an annual neighborhood rain and tree planting effort has resulted in the planting of over 1,500 trees and hundreds of understory plants in the neighborhood
• how a county grant helped pay for water-harvesting strategies harvesting over 1 million gallons of annual stormwater in and along the streets
• how a neighborhood-organized Neighborhood Foresters program is training up the neighborhood to steward these features and is implementing more.
• public art & other strategies reclaiming the commons for more life!

Brad will also be selling (at deep discount) & signing copies of the newly released & revised, full-color editions of his award-winning books; and Plant the Rain t-shirts, caps, and stickers.
https://www.harvestingrainwater.com/shop/

Conference on World Affairs, Boulder, Colorado
2022-04-06 - 2022-04-09
For more information see:
https://www.colorado.edu/cwa/

Sneak preview of "Water Harvester: An Invitation to Abundance" documentary, plus tour of water-harvesting earthworks at the Tumamoc Resilience Garden
2022-04-21 18:30 - 20:00
WHERE:
The Boat House at the base of Tumamoc Hill
(on the right/west side of road up the Hill, look for stone building just after you pass the entrance gate)
1675 W. Anklam Rd.
Tucson, Arizona 85745

Tour of the Tumamoc Resilience Gardens led by Brad Lancaster
6:30pm to 7pm
The Tumamoc Resilience Garden at the base of Tumamoc Hill east of the Shrine House (white adobe house with turquoise trim) will be an inspirational setting where our community can have hands-on participation in how to live in the desert in a hotter and drier future.
Brad Lancaster designed the just finished passive water-harvesting earthworks that are the topographical foundation of the Garden, and will harvest rainfall and stormwater runoff to provide free, on-site irrigation to the garden, help recharge our groundwater, and control flooding and erosion on the hill and downstream.
Installation of the earthworks was done by Little John Excavating and Dryland Design.
Brad will lead a 30-minute tour of these earthworks and share what is to come next.
See here to view a video of Brad’s presentation Planting the Seeds for Tomorrow: The Tumamoc Resilience Garden – Planting the Rain

Screening of the film “Water Harvester: An Invitation to Abundance”
7pm to 8pm
The Desert Laboratory will host the screening of the new half hour documentary Water Harvester: An Invitation to Abundance by Arizona Public Media producer/director David Fenster. Be the first to see it!
Click image below to view the trailer

Screening will be followed by questions and answers with David Fenster and Brad Lancaster.
Brad will also be on hand to sell and sign the new full-color editions of his books Rainwater Harvesting for Drylands and Beyond

Parking
It can be difficult to park right at the entrance of Tumamoc Hill so we encourage you to walk or ride a bike to the event.
If you drive to Tumamoc Hill, park on the street along Anklam Road.
Do NOT park in the parking lots of Saint Mary’s Hospital or the medical offices along Anklam Road, as these spaces are designated for physicians and employees of the medical facilities as well as patients and their families. Please note that parking regulations are enforced in these lots.
If you ride a bicycle, please lock your bike to a metal post/bike rack at the entrance.

Pruning 1.0: Hands-on pruning, tree care, & mulching workshop - Tucson, AZ
2022-09-17 08:00 - 11:00
Join certified arborist Aleck MacKinnon and neighborhood forester Brad Lancaster in the Dunbar/Spring neighborhood in Tucson, Arizona for this hands-on workshop.
Get all the info HERE

Water Harvesting Design Certification Course - Tucson, Arizona
2022-11-07 - 2022-11-19 | watershed management group
For more info on this Watershed Management Group course, plus how to register see:
https://watershedmg.org/event/water-harvesting-design-certification-fall-2022
Brad will teach the morning of November 15th, and he will also offer a guided tour of his place and some of his neighborhood’s rain-irrigated native food forest work, Sunday November 20th.
Sign up for the tour once it is posted on Brad’s Events page.

Guided Water-Harvesting Home & Neighborhood Block Tour with Brad Lancaster – Tucson, AZ
2022-11-20 09:00 - 11:00
WHEN: 9am – 11am, Sunday, November 20, 2022
WHERE: 813 N. 9th Avenue, Tucson, AZ 85705
COST: $14 per person. Must pay/register in advance. No-shows cannot be refunded.
Limited number of spaces. First paid, first served.
SOLD OUT

Come tour with the guy who wrote the books on water harvesting and more!
Brad Lancaster, author of the just released, full-color, revised editions of his award-winning books “Rainwater Harvesting for Drylands and Beyond, Volumes 1 and 2” will guide this tour of he and his brother’s family’s water-harvesting & landscape design award-winning 1/8th-acre urban property and surrounding block of the neighborhood.
100,000 gallons of rain and stormwater is harvested annually on the property and in the adjoining public right-of-way. You’ll see examples of:
• an integrated “tiny house” where a one-car garage was converted into a cottage or “garottage” that passive heats and cools itself for free with well-designed winter sun access & summer shading. 75% of its building materials were salvaged from the waste stream;
• solar cooking, solar water heating, and solar power;
• legal & inexpensive site-built composting toilets, which helped legalize such toilets state-wide;
• organic gardens getting 95+% of their irrigation needs met by harvested rainwater;
• inexpensive gravity-fed rainwater harvesting systems providing safe & delicious rainwater for all domestic needs including drinking – with no expensive pumps or mechanical filtration systems;
• extensive gravity-fed greywater harvesting systems turning “waste” waters into resource waters.
• how a joyous 20 plus-years of car-free life has been possible (cargo bicycle is key), and saves over $8,000 annually
In the neighborhood part of the tour you’ll see:
• water-harvesting traffic-calming features that helped turn a dangerous streets into welcoming bicycle boulevards,
• street-runoff harvesting strategies that use street runoff to freely irrigate street trees and control flooding – and new evolutions and improvements on these strategies
• learn how these once “pre-legal” street runoff-harvesting strategies were legalized, rebated, and mandated
• native food forests doubling as wildlife and pollinator corridors that canopy over public foot paths,
• how an annual neighborhood rain and tree planting effort has resulted in the planting of over 1,500 trees and hundreds of understory plants in the neighborhood
• how a county grant helped pay for water-harvesting strategies harvesting over 1 million gallons of annual stormwater in and along the streets
• how a neighborhood-organized Neighborhood Foresters program is training up the neighborhood to steward these features and is implementing more.
• public art & other strategies reclaiming the commons for more life!

Just in time for the holidays
Brad will also be selling (at deep discount) & signing copies of the newly released & revised, full-color editions of his award-winning books; and Plant the Rain t-shirts, caps, and stickers.

For self-guided water tours in Tucson see:
https://www.harvestingrainwater.com/tour/

Here is a video of a 2016 tour of my place (more evolutions have since occurred)…

Water Harvesting Design Certification Course – Tucson, Arizona
2022-12-05 - 2022-12-10 | watershed management group
For more info on this Watershed Management Group course, plus how to register see:
https://watershedmg.org/learn/training/certification
Brad will teach the morning of December 6th, and he may also offer a guided tour of his place and some of his neighborhood’s rain-irrigated native food forest work, Sunday December 11th.
Sign up for the tour once it is posted on Brad’s Events page.

Guided Water-Harvesting Home & Neighborhood Block Tour with Brad Lancaster – Tucson, AZ
2022-12-11 15:00 - 17:00
WHEN: 3pm – 5pm, Sunday, December 11, 2022
WHERE: 813 N. 9th Avenue, Tucson, AZ 85705
COST: $14 per person. Must pay/register in advance. No-shows cannot be refunded.
Limited number of spaces. First paid, first served.

Number of participants

One person $14.00 USDtwo people $28.00 USDThree people $42.00 USDFour people $56.00 USD

Come tour with the guy who wrote the books on water harvesting and more!
Brad Lancaster, author of the just released, full-color, revised editions of his award-winning books “Rainwater Harvesting for Drylands and Beyond, Volumes 1 and 2” will guide this tour of he and his brother’s family’s water-harvesting & landscape design award-winning 1/8th-acre urban property and surrounding block of the neighborhood.
100,000 gallons of rain and stormwater is harvested annually on the property and in the adjoining public right-of-way. You’ll see examples of:
• an integrated “tiny house” where a one-car garage was converted into a cottage or “garottage” that passive heats and cools itself for free with well-designed winter sun access & summer shading. 75% of its building materials were salvaged from the waste stream;
• solar cooking, solar water heating, and solar power;
• legal & inexpensive site-built composting toilets, which helped legalize such toilets state-wide;
• organic gardens getting 95+% of their irrigation needs met by harvested rainwater;
• inexpensive gravity-fed rainwater harvesting systems providing safe & delicious rainwater for all domestic needs including drinking – with no expensive pumps or mechanical filtration systems;
• extensive gravity-fed greywater harvesting systems turning “waste” waters into resource waters.
• how a joyous 20 plus-years of car-free life has been possible (cargo bicycle is key), and saves over $8,000 annually
In the neighborhood part of the tour you’ll see:
• water-harvesting traffic-calming features that helped turn a dangerous streets into welcoming bicycle boulevards,
• street-runoff harvesting strategies that use street runoff to freely irrigate street trees and control flooding – and new evolutions and improvements on these strategies
• learn how these once “pre-legal” street runoff-harvesting strategies were legalized, rebated, and mandated
• native food forests doubling as wildlife and pollinator corridors that canopy over public foot paths,
• how an annual neighborhood rain and tree planting effort has resulted in the planting of over 1,500 trees and hundreds of understory plants in the neighborhood
• how a county grant helped pay for water-harvesting strategies harvesting over 1 million gallons of annual stormwater in and along the streets
• how a neighborhood-organized Neighborhood Foresters program is training up the neighborhood to steward these features and is implementing more.
• public art & other strategies reclaiming the commons for more life!

Brad will also be selling (at deep discount) & signing copies of the newly released & revised, full-color editions of his award-winning books; and Plant the Rain t-shirts, caps, and stickers.

For self-guided water tours in Tucson see:
https://www.harvestingrainwater.com/tour/

Here is a video of a 2016 tour of my place (more evolutions have since occurred)…

Water Harvester: An Invitation to Abundance—free movie screening
2023-01-26 17:00 - 19:00 | Tohono Chul Park, Tucson, AZ
I’ll be at the screening along with director/producer David Fenster for a question and answer panel after the screening.
I’ll also be signing my books Rainwater Harvesting for Drylands and Beyond, which will be available for purchase at the event.

To reserve a seat at the screening go to the event website here

And to view the film at your leisure, view it here.

7th Biennial Russian River-Friendly Landscaping Event
2023-02-07 08:00 - 12:00
7th Biennial Russian River-Friendly Landscaping Event
Join industry professionals to discuss practical practices to capture rainwater, carbon, and greater potential in urban landscapes.

By Russian River Watershed Association

When:
Tue, February 7, 2023, 8:00 AM – 12:00 PM PST

Where:
Utilities Field Operations 35 Stony Point Road Santa Rosa, CALIFORNIA 95401

More info at:
https://www.eventbrite.com/e/7th-biennial-russian-river-friendly-landscaping-event-tickets-498915759467

Doors open at 7:30 AM
Continental breakfast will be provided. CEU Certificates are available upon request!
Our Featured Speakers:
Brad Lancaster (Keynote Speaker): Teacher, Consultant, Designer of regenerative systems, and Author of the Rainwater Harvesting for Drylands and Beyond book series
Obi Kaufmann: American Naturalist, Author, and Illustrator
Rebecca Burgess: Executive Director of Fibershed, Board Chair of the Carbon Cycle Institute, Author
Local Resources – Lightening talks

Integrating Locally Sourced Compost XINCI TAN, ZERO WASTE SONOMA
Russian River Rainwater Catchment Systems JESSICA POLLITZ, SONOMA RCD

With Additional Special Guests Panel – Where the shovel meets the soil: Best Practical Practices

Construct and Maintain Garden Sink Landscapes
Business Cases (Obstacles/Challenges and Opportunities to Maintaining Landscapes)

Water Harvesting Design Certification Course – Tucson, Arizona
2023-02-27 - 2023-03-11
For more info on this Watershed Management Group course, plus how to register see:
https://watershedmg.org/event/water-harvesting-design-certification-spring-2023
Brad will teach the morning of March 7th, and he will also offer a guided tour of his place and some of his neighborhood’s rain-irrigated native food forest work, Sunday March 12th.
Sign up for the tour once it is posted on Brad’s Events page.

Sustainable Landscapes Expo - Tucson, AZ
2023-03-11 10:00 - 14:00
Time:
10am – 2pm
Location:
4210 N. Campbell Ave., Tucson, AZ 85705

Brad Lancaster will give the following two dynamic one hour-long presentations at the event with questions and answers afterward:

10:30 am to 11:30 am:
Planting the Rain to grow regenerative abundance: Water-harvesting principles and practices

Noon to 1pm:
Re-hydrating and Re-enlivening Our Communities with Rain- (and greywater-) watered Home & Neighborhood Food Forestry

More info in the link below…
https://pimasmartscape.arizona.edu/sustainable-landscapes-expo

Guided Water-Harvesting Home & Neighborhood Block Tour with Brad Lancaster – Tucson, AZ
2023-03-12 09:00 - 11:00
WHEN: 9am – 11am, Sunday, March 12, 2023
WHERE: 813 N. 9th Avenue, Tucson, AZ 85705
COST: $14 per person. Must pay/register in advance. No-shows cannot be refunded.
Limited number of spaces. First paid, first served.

SOLD OUT
Next tours will be November 19, 2023 and March 10, 2024
(Though I may schedule others, and I usually post tours—and start taking sign ups—a month before the tour on my Events page—so keep checking back)

Come tour with the guy who wrote the books on water harvesting and more!
Brad Lancaster, author of the just released, full-color, revised editions of his award-winning books “Rainwater Harvesting for Drylands and Beyond, Volumes 1 and 2” will guide this tour of he and his brother’s family’s water-harvesting & landscape design award-winning 1/8th-acre urban property and surrounding block of the neighborhood.
100,000 gallons of rain and stormwater is harvested annually on the property and in the adjoining public right-of-way. You’ll see examples of:
• an integrated “tiny house” where a one-car garage was converted into a cottage or “garottage” that passive heats and cools itself for free with well-designed winter sun access & summer shading. 75% of its building materials were salvaged from the waste stream;
• solar cooking, solar water heating, and solar power;
• legal & inexpensive site-built composting toilets, which helped legalize such toilets state-wide;
• organic gardens getting 95+% of their irrigation needs met by harvested rainwater;
• inexpensive gravity-fed rainwater harvesting systems providing safe & delicious rainwater for all domestic needs including drinking – with no expensive pumps or mechanical filtration systems;
• extensive gravity-fed greywater harvesting systems turning “waste” waters into resource waters.
• how a joyous 20 plus-years of car-free life has been possible (cargo bicycle is key), and saves over $8,000 annually
In the neighborhood part of the tour you’ll see:
• water-harvesting traffic-calming features that helped turn a dangerous streets into welcoming bicycle boulevards,
• street-runoff harvesting strategies that use street runoff to freely irrigate street trees and control flooding – and new evolutions and improvements on these strategies
• learn how these once “pre-legal” street runoff-harvesting strategies were legalized, rebated, and mandated
• native food forests doubling as wildlife and pollinator corridors that canopy over public foot paths,
• how an annual neighborhood rain and tree planting effort has resulted in the planting of over 1,500 trees and hundreds of understory plants in the neighborhood
• how a county grant helped pay for water-harvesting strategies harvesting over 1 million gallons of annual stormwater in and along the streets
• how a neighborhood-organized Neighborhood Foresters program is training up the neighborhood to steward these features and is implementing more.
• public art & other strategies reclaiming the commons for more life!

Brad will also be selling (at deep discount) & signing copies of the newly released & revised, full-color editions of his award-winning books; and Plant the Rain t-shirts, caps, and stickers.

For self-guided water tours in Tucson see:
https://www.harvestingrainwater.com/tour/

Here is a video of a 2016 tour of my place (more evolutions have since occurred)…

Land & Water Restoration Workshop - Buenos Aires Wildlife Refuge, Arizona
2023-03-20 - 2023-03-25
March 20-25, 2023

Please join the Altar Valley Conservation Alliance (AVCA) and restoration experts Brad Lancaster, Omar Ore-Giron, and Kyle Thompson as we restore arroyos on the Buenos Aires National Wildlife Refuge. Throughout the week, we will:

Learn about site assessment and design techniques applicable in rural and urban settings
Build rock & brush grade-control, water harvesting, & induced meandering structures (one-rock dams, baffles, etc.) in the Puertocito Wash
Maintain existing structures at the Arroyo Hondo Wash using innovative rock and brush techniques
Conduct monitoring of stream morphology and vegetation
Work in a system where roads, tanks, and arroyos are modified together to harvest rainwater

Practitioners and volunteers are welcome for this free workshop any and all days from March 20-25. Camping is available on the Refuge.

Hands-on land & water restoration workshop in Buenos Aires Wildlife Refuge – SW Arizona
This is a great opportunity to get some hands-on experience with placement, design, and construction of water-harvesting erosion control and induced meandering structures in different sized arroyos to reconnect these downcut waterways with their floodplains for greater water spread and rehydration. In addition, we’ll cover rolling dips—a strategy that diverts water off dirt roads where the water can do maximum good in the adjoining landscape.
These strategies work great in BOTH the urban and rural setting. If you aren’t familiar with them, here is your opportunity to change that. Every water harvesting practitioner should know when and where to use these structures and how to effectively hybridize them when appropriate.

To see similar projects in Altar Valley, along with before and after photos see here.

For more information, please contact Julia Guglielmo, AVCA Conservation & Science Director, at julia@altarvalleyconservation.org.
More info & to register see link below
https://www.eventbrite.com/e/buenos-aires-national-wildlife-refuge-restoration-workshop-tickets-554283796757

Hands-on cholla bud harvesting, processing, eating, & planting workshop - Tucson, AZ
2023-04-29 07:00 - 09:00
The cholla cactus flower buds just started blooming in our neighborhood this week, so its time to harvest some (but not all)!
Come join us as we harvest cholla flower buds from neighborhood-grown staghorn cholla cactus, then process and enjoy the delicious bounty.

Get all the details here

Cool Boulder: Planting Rain - An Evening with Brad Lancaster, Pioneer in Resilient Landscapes - Boulder, Colorado
2023-06-29 19:00 - 20:30
What: Cool Boulder is excited to offer you an evening with rainwater planting pioneer, Brad Lancaster, sharing stories and inspirational examples of how planting rain could help create landscapes and communities that are resilient to climate change, as well as healthier and happier places to live!

Brad Lancaster has worked with communities all over the world to bring both indigenous and traditional knowledge of rainwater planting together with contemporary approaches and technologies that enable us to live and thrive on the water that comes to us for free from the sky. He will share stories from his experiences with these different places and cultures.

Recognizing that Colorado’s future climate will much more closely resemble places like New Mexico, we need to learn from those who have already been adapting to a limited ground/surface water future. Brad will share the emerging lessons and best practices that are reshaping both the way we approach infrastructure development and water policy, both in his native home of Tucson, AZ (average rainfall 10-12”/yr) and elsewhere. Learn about specific approaches being taken in other communities and examples of household and community projects that are easily implemented at both levels.

Get a chance to meet others in the community who are interested in exploring these new approaches to rainwater planting!

This event is free, but you must register on this Eventbrite page to attend in-person. A livestream and recording will be available as well. (more details below)

When: Thursday, June 29th; 7:00 p.m. – 8:30 p.m.

Where: Boulder JCC, Levin Hall; 6007 Oreg Avenue, Boulder, CO, 80303

Important Details:

Informal reception prior to presentation with hors d’oeuvers and non-alcoholic beverages, a presentation from Brad Lancaster followed by a Q&A session and an opportunity to have Brad sign copies of his books “Rainwater Harvesting for Drylands and Beyond” Vols 1-3!

This event is free, but you must register on this Eventbrite page to attend in-person.

Due to space limitations, if you register for the event but can no longer attend, please unregister so that someone else can sign up and enjoy this opportunity. Thank you!

If you are not able to attend in-person, or are not available on the evening of Thursday, June 29th, this event will also be livestreamed and recorded and will be hosted on the Cool Boulder website. More details to come, so stay tuned at www.coolboulder.org!

If you are interested in learning more about planting rain, Brad’s innovating work and the techniques he has developed, check out the following resources:

Brad has literally written the book on rainwater harvesting practices!

A short movie was recently made about Brad, called, “Water Harvester: An Invitation to Abundance“, which shows some of the amazing transformations he’s helped create.

He has also done a number of great talks, including this Ted Talk from a few years ago.

ALSO check out the two follow up workshops on July 1st
Cool Boulder: A Two-Part Workshop with specialist, Brad Lancaster, on Planting Rain and Growing Absorbent Landscapes

https://www.coolboulder.org/cool-boulder-partners-events/planting-rain-with-pioneer-brad-lancaster

Cool Boulder: A Two-Part Workshop with specialist, Brad Lancaster, on Planting Rain and Growing Absorbent Landscapes
2023-07-01 09:30 - 15:30
What: Join Cool Boulder guest speaker and rainwater utilization expert, Brad Lancaster, as he guides attendees through a hands-on workshop and site assessment activity at the Junkyard Social Club. Brad will demonstrate the potentials of “planting rain” through describing a body of existing work around the Western US, and by walking participants through the steps in a site assessment and strategic plan for managing the water cycling in a way that feeds vegetation and minimizes stormwater runoff to create more resilient and healthy living landscapes! This workshop will include two sessions – one in the morning and one in the afternoon. You may register for one or both sessions if you’d like, but please unregister if you can no longer attend. (registration details below)

What to bring:

Clothes you are comfortable walking in, getting dirty

Refillable water bottle

Notebook, writing utensil or other method of capturing information

Session #1: Morning

The morning session will include:

A show and tell around exciting rainwater utilization/growing absorbent landscapes that have taken place around the US,

An introduction to the basic concepts and design strategies for incorporating rainwater into climate resilient landscapes, and

A hands-on training in simple site assessment techniques that participants can then apply to areas they can work with.

When: Saturday, July 1st; 9:30 a.m. – 12:30 p.m.

Where: Junkyard Social Club; 2525 Frontier Ave Suite A, Boulder, CO 80301

Click here to register for session #1 in the morning!

Session #2: Afternoon

The afternoon session will include:

A pizza lunch will be provided to those who attend the field portion of the workshop.

A visit to 3 different types of urban landscape sites:

a public facility/park,

an urban single-family dwelling, and

an urban multi-family dwelling site.

Participants will be able to practice using the site assessment techniques they were introduced to in the morning session.

When: Saturday, July 1st; 1:00 p.m. – 3:30 p.m.

Where: Aurora 7 Park (by High Peaks Elementary School); 3805 Aurora Ave, Boulder, CO 80303

Click here to register for session #2 in the afternoon!

Brad Lancaster has worked with communities all over the world to bring both indigenous and traditional knowledge of rainwater planting together with contemporary approaches and technologies that enable us to live and thrive on the water that comes to us for free from the sky. He will share stories from his experiences with these different places and cultures.

Recognizing that Colorado’s future climate will much more closely resemble places like New Mexico, we need to learn from those who have already been adapting to a limited ground/surface water future. Brad will share the emerging lessons and best practices that are reshaping both the way we approach infrastructure development and water policy, both in his native home of Tucson, AZ (average rainfall 10-12”/yr) and elsewhere. Learn about specific approaches being taken in other communities and examples of household and community projects that are easily implemented at both levels.

If you are interested in learning more about rainwater harvesting and Brad’s innovating work and the techniques he has developed, check out the following resources:

Brad has literally written the book on rainwater harvesting practices!

A short movie was recently made about Brad, called, “Water Harvester: An Invitation to Abundance“, which shows some of the amazing transformations he’s helped create.

He has also done a number of great talks, including this Ted Talk from a few years ago.

Deadline to sign up for installation of rain gardens and plantings with the 28th Annual Dunbar/Spring (& 5th Annual West University) Neighborhood Rain, Tree, & Native Food Forest Planting – Tucson, AZ
2023-11-06
Get all the details here

APLD International Landscape Design Conference - Tucson, Arizona
2023-11-09 - 2023-11-13
Brad Lancaster will give a presentation at the conference, and lead a tour of his property and the Dunbar/Spring neighborhood rain-irrigated native food forest.
For more info see link below…
https://www.apld.org/international-landscape-design-conference

Water Harvesting Design Certification Course – Tucson, Arizona
2023-11-13 - 2023-11-18
For more info on this Watershed Management Group course, plus how to register see:
https://watershedmg.org/event/water-harvesting-design-certification-fall-2023
Brad will teach the morning of November 14th, and he will also offer a guided tour of his place and some of his neighborhood’s rain-irrigated native food forest work, Sunday November 19th.
Sign up for the tour once it is posted on Brad’s Events page.

Guided Water-Harvesting Home & Neighborhood Block Tour with Brad Lancaster – Tucson, AZ
2023-11-19 09:00 - 11:00
WHEN: 9am – 11am, Sunday, November 19, 2023
WHERE: 813 N. 9th Avenue, Tucson, AZ 85705
COST: $14 per person. Must pay/register in advance. No-shows cannot be refunded.
Limited number of spaces. First paid, first served.
REGISTRATION/TICKETS:
Pick the number of attendees below, and click on the “BUY NOW” button
SOLD OUT
Though there are openings in the December 9 tour

Come tour with the guy who wrote the books on water harvesting and more!
Brad Lancaster, author of the just released, full-color, revised editions of his award-winning books “Rainwater Harvesting for Drylands and Beyond, Volumes 1 and 2” will guide this tour of he and his brother’s family’s water-harvesting & landscape design award-winning 1/8th-acre urban property and surrounding block of the neighborhood.
100,000 gallons of rain and stormwater is harvested annually on the property and in the adjoining public right-of-way. You’ll see examples of:
• an integrated “tiny house” where a one-car garage was converted into a cottage or “garottage” that passive heats and cools itself for free with well-designed winter sun access & summer shading. 75% of its building materials were salvaged from the waste stream;
• solar cooking, solar water heating, and solar power;
• legal & inexpensive site-built composting toilets, which helped legalize such toilets state-wide;
• organic gardens getting 95+% of their irrigation needs met by harvested rainwater;
• inexpensive gravity-fed rainwater harvesting systems providing safe & delicious rainwater for all domestic needs including drinking – with no expensive pumps or mechanical filtration systems;
• extensive gravity-fed greywater harvesting systems turning “waste” waters into resource waters.
• how a joyous 20 plus-years of car-free life has been possible (cargo bicycle is key), and saves over $8,000 annually
In the neighborhood part of the tour you’ll see:
• water-harvesting traffic-calming features that helped turn a dangerous streets into welcoming bicycle boulevards,
• street-runoff harvesting strategies that use street runoff to freely irrigate street trees and control flooding – and new evolutions and improvements on these strategies
• learn how these once “pre-legal” street runoff-harvesting strategies were legalized, rebated, and mandated
• native food forests doubling as wildlife and pollinator corridors that canopy over public foot paths,
• how an annual neighborhood rain and tree planting effort has resulted in the planting of over 1,500 trees and hundreds of understory plants in the neighborhood
• how a county grant helped pay for water-harvesting strategies harvesting over 1 million gallons of annual stormwater in and along the streets
• how a neighborhood-organized Neighborhood Foresters program is training up the neighborhood to steward these features and is implementing more.
• public art & other strategies reclaiming the commons for more life!

Brad will also be selling (at deep discount) & signing copies of the newly released & revised, full-color editions of his award-winning books; and Plant the Rain t-shirts, caps, and stickers.

For self-guided water tours in Tucson see:
https://www.harvestingrainwater.com/tour/

Here is a video of a 2016 tour of my place (more evolutions have since occurred)…

Guided Water-Harvesting Home & Neighborhood Block Tour with Brad Lancaster – Tucson, AZ
2023-12-09 09:00 - 11:00
WHEN: 9am – 11am, Saturday, December 9, 2023
WHERE: 813 N. 9th Avenue, Tucson, AZ 85705
COST: $15 per person. Must pay/register in advance. No-shows cannot be refunded.
Limited number of spaces. First paid, first served.
REGISTRATION/TICKETS:
Click on the “BUY NOW” button below

$15.00
Buy now

Come tour with the guy who wrote the books on water harvesting and more!
Brad Lancaster, author of the just released, full-color, revised editions of his award-winning books “Rainwater Harvesting for Drylands and Beyond, Volumes 1 and 2” will guide this tour of he and his brother’s family’s water-harvesting & landscape design award-winning 1/8th-acre urban property and surrounding block of the neighborhood.
100,000 gallons of rain and stormwater is harvested annually on the property and in the adjoining public right-of-way. You’ll see examples of:
• an integrated “tiny house” where a one-car garage was converted into a cottage or “garottage” that passive heats and cools itself for free with well-designed winter sun access & summer shading. 75% of its building materials were salvaged from the waste stream;
• solar cooking, solar water heating, and solar power;
• legal & inexpensive site-built composting toilets, which helped legalize such toilets state-wide;
• organic gardens getting 95+% of their irrigation needs met by harvested rainwater;
• inexpensive gravity-fed rainwater harvesting systems providing safe & delicious rainwater for all domestic needs including drinking – with no expensive pumps or mechanical filtration systems;
• extensive gravity-fed greywater harvesting systems turning “waste” waters into resource waters.
• how a joyous 20 plus-years of car-free life has been possible (cargo bicycle is key), and saves over $8,000 annually
In the neighborhood part of the tour you’ll see:
• water-harvesting traffic-calming features that helped turn a dangerous streets into welcoming bicycle boulevards,
• street-runoff harvesting strategies that use street runoff to freely irrigate street trees and control flooding – and new evolutions and improvements on these strategies
• learn how these once “pre-legal” street runoff-harvesting strategies were legalized, rebated, and mandated
• native food forests doubling as wildlife and pollinator corridors that canopy over public foot paths,
• how an annual neighborhood rain and tree planting effort has resulted in the planting of over 1,500 trees and hundreds of understory plants in the neighborhood
• how a county grant helped pay for water-harvesting strategies harvesting over 1 million gallons of annual stormwater in and along the streets
• how a neighborhood-organized Neighborhood Foresters program is training up the neighborhood to steward these features and is implementing more.
• public art & other strategies reclaiming the commons for more life!

Brad will also be selling (at deep discount) & signing copies of the newly released & revised, full-color editions of his award-winning books; and Plant the Rain t-shirts, caps, and stickers.

For self-guided water tours in Tucson see:
https://www.harvestingrainwater.com/tour/

Here is a video of a 2016 tour of my place (more evolutions have since occurred)…

Integrated Local Harvests presentation by Brad Lancaster in Joshua Tree, CA
2023-12-13 18:00 - 20:00
WHERE:
Sunlight Ranch
62323 Belmont St
Joshua Tree, CA 92252
WHEN:
6pm, Wednesday, December 13, 2023
COST:
$10
Integrated Local Harvests:
Simple and Effective Ways to Enhance the Natural Abundance of Your Home, Community, and the Larger World
This dynamic presentation shares patterns and strategies to harvest, integrate, and enliven free local resources—such as rain-, grey-, and stormwaters; sun, wind, and shade; along with soil fertility, wild foods, and community fun—in a way that generates far more potential than the sum of their parts. Scarcity is re-visioned into abundance simply through creative cycling and utilization of what is already at hand. Costly and consuming habits and infrastructure, disconnected from their surroundings, are reoriented and reconnected to maximize enriching opportunities.
You’ll see many examples of such transformation, including how once-dying wetlands and creek flows are being regenerated with simple hand-built structures made of on-site materials; how ancient sun- and shade-harvesting sites are informing passively heated, cooled, and powered modern homes and retrofits; and how once-blighted, overheated neighborhood streets are being rejuvenated into thriving greenbelts of water, people, wildlife, art, food, and celebration by planting once-drained stormwater, seed, and yard prunings.
This talk is both an invitation for you to engage and partner with your natural surroundings and community, and a treasure map showing you the way—by planting the rain, dancing with the sun, growing fertile shade, and more—to live as one of your community’s inspirational sparks!
Brad will have the new full-color, revised & expanded editions of his books for sale and signing, along with rainwater harvesting caps, shirts, & stickers.

16th Annual Saskatchewan Association of Watersheds Conference
2024-01-30
Conference theme: Building Resilience Through Urban Water Systems
Get all the details in the link below:
https://saskwatersheds.ca/2024-saw-conference/

Water Harvesting Design Certification Course – Tucson, Arizona
2024-03-04 - 2024-03-09 | watershed management group
For more info on this Watershed Management Group course, plus how to register see:
https://watershedmg.org/event/water-harvesting-design-certification-spring-2024
Brad will teach the morning of March 5th, and he will also offer a guided tour of his place and some of his neighborhood’s rain-irrigated native food forest work, Sunday March 10th.
Sign up for the tour once it is posted on Brad’s Events page.

Guided Water-Harvesting Home & Neighborhood Block Tour with Brad Lancaster – Tucson, AZ
2024-03-10 09:00 - 11:00
WHEN: 9am – 11am, Sunday, March 10, 2024
WHERE: 813 N. 9th Avenue, Tucson, AZ 85705
COST: $15 per person. Must pay/register in advance. No-shows cannot be refunded.
Limited number of spaces. First paid, first served.
SOLD OUT
Come tour with the guy who wrote the books on water harvesting and more!
Brad Lancaster, author of the just released, full-color, revised editions of his award-winning books “Rainwater Harvesting for Drylands and Beyond, Volumes 1 and 2” will guide this tour of he and his brother’s family’s water-harvesting & landscape design award-winning 1/8th-acre urban property and surrounding block of the neighborhood.
100,000 gallons of rain and stormwater is harvested annually on the property and in the adjoining public right-of-way. You’ll see examples of:
• an integrated “tiny house” where a one-car garage was converted into a cottage or “garottage” that passive heats and cools itself for free with well-designed winter sun access & summer shading. 75% of its building materials were salvaged from the waste stream;
• solar cooking, solar water heating, and solar power;
• legal & inexpensive site-built composting toilets, which helped legalize such toilets state-wide;
• organic gardens getting 95+% of their irrigation needs met by harvested rainwater;
• inexpensive gravity-fed rainwater harvesting systems providing safe & delicious rainwater for all domestic needs including drinking – with no expensive pumps or mechanical filtration systems;
• extensive gravity-fed greywater harvesting systems turning “waste” waters into resource waters.
• how a joyous 20 plus-years of car-free life has been possible (cargo bicycle is key), and saves over $8,000 annually
In the neighborhood part of the tour you’ll see:
• water-harvesting traffic-calming features that helped turn a dangerous streets into welcoming bicycle boulevards,
• street-runoff harvesting strategies that use street runoff to freely irrigate street trees and control flooding – and new evolutions and improvements on these strategies
• learn how these once “pre-legal” street runoff-harvesting strategies were legalized, rebated, and mandated
• native food forests doubling as wildlife and pollinator corridors that canopy over public foot paths,
• how an annual neighborhood rain and tree planting effort has resulted in the planting of over 1,500 trees and hundreds of understory plants in the neighborhood
• how a county grant helped pay for water-harvesting strategies harvesting over 1 million gallons of annual stormwater in and along the streets
• how a neighborhood-organized Neighborhood Foresters program is training up the neighborhood to steward these features and is implementing more.
• public art & other strategies reclaiming the commons for more life!

Brad will also be selling (at deep discount) & signing copies of the newly released & revised, full-color editions of his award-winning books; and Plant the Rain t-shirts, caps, and stickers.

For self-guided water tours in Tucson see:
https://www.harvestingrainwater.com/tour/

Here is a video of a 2016 tour of my place (more evolutions have since occurred)…

Altar Valley Conservation Alliance Arroyo Hondo Restoration Workshop
2024-03-16 09:00 - 17:00
WHEN: Saturday, March 16, 2024
9am to 5pm (with optional camping Saturday night)

WHERE: Buenos Aires Wildlife Refugee, Southern Arizona
COST: Free

TO REGISTER: Click on this link

Join us for a hands-on workshop to improve and maintain restoration work at the Arroyo Hondo drainage on the Buenos Aires National Wildlife Refuge. This event will be lead by local restoration experts Brad Lancaster, Omar Ore-Giron, Jeff Rhody, and Kyle Thompson.
The workshop is free of cost! We will learn about:
• Low-technology, process-based methods for stream restoration and wildlife habitat improvement
• How to monitor a stream’s response to your work
• Ways to use hand-built structures and machinery to maintain projects

For more information about the workshop, please contact Julia Guglielmo (Altar Valley Conservation Alliance): julia@altarvalleyconservation.org

28th Annual Dunbar/Spring neighborhood Rain & Native Food Forest Planting – Tucson, AZ
2024-04-13 08:00 - 10:00
This planting of rain, trees, understory, & wildflowers is occurring in the West University neighborhood, but the planting event is open to anyone from any neighborhood, and is a great opportunity to see how such an event, or other Neighborhood Forester endeavors, could be organized elsewhere.

Date: Saturday, April 13, 2024.
The stormwater eddy basins (each having over 4,500-gallon annual capacity) were just completed – so now we can plant. Got to plant the rain before we plant the plants!
Time: 7:00 am for a planting demonstration, then keep going to various parts of the neighborhood. The demonstration will show you how to plant the rain to maximize its potential, how to plant food-bearing native trees by seed and/or with nursery stock to maximize passive summer shading/cooling, and how to recycle/plant prunings and leaves as fertility-building, carbon-sequestering, pollutant-filtering, water-harvesting mulch.
End time of 10:00 is approximate (with a good showing of folks we’ll likely finish up early).
Meeting spot:
610 N. 9th Ave
Once we finish planting there, we’ll move to the following locations in the neighborhood, all just a block away from one another (in the following order):
124 W. 4th Street
127 W. University Blvd
920 N. Perry Ave
905 N. 9th Ave

Come join us in planting native shade trees, understory vegetation, and seed within or beside water-harvesting earthworks in the public rights-of-way. The idea is to plant native food-producing, flood-controlling, wildlife-habitat-producing, beautiful, air- and water-filtering, living air conditioners. Street trees that shade up to 75% of the street’s surface can also cool summer neighborhood temperatures by up to 20ºF.
This enhances the walkability and bikeability of our neighborhoods, which improves health and drops crime. When we harvest street runoff to irrigate the street trees, we also reduce water consumption as we reduce downstream flooding. Thus far this annual event has resulted in over 1,700 trees being planted in our neighborhood, thousands of understory plants, and contributed to annually harvesting over one million gallons of stormwater that used to go to the stormdrain—let’s keep going!

What to bring: Work clothes, sun hat, gloves, and water as we’ll be working outdoors. A pointed shovel, pruning tools, and/or hard rake would also be great (and we’ll have some extra tools on hand for those lacking them).

Bonus: We’ll also help you identify desired native wildflowers to encourage – and pesky invasive weeds to pull – so next year we have more wildflowers and fewer weeds.

For info and photos from past plantings see here

For more info on our Annual Neighborhood Rain, Tree, & Food Forest Planting see here

We’ll do the West University Neighborhood Planting on Saturday, April 14, 2024

For more info on these and many other water harvesting strategies, check out the full-color, revised editions of Rainwater Harvesting for Drylands and Beyond available at deep discount direct from the author Brad Lancaster.
