Rainwater Harvesting for Drylands and Beyond by Brad Lancaster

7th annual community planting of new street-side, water-harvesting basins PART 2 in the public rights-of-ways of the West University neighborhood – Tucson, AZ
2026-04-11 06:30 - 10:00 (America/Phoenix) | AZ
WHEN: 6:30am – 10am, Saturday, April 11, 2026
WHERE: 437 E. 1st Street,
When we finish planting the two basins at that site we’ll plant the last basin at 502 E. 2nd Street

Come help us plant three new street-side, water-harvesting, eddy basins — installations in the public commons, planted and stewarded by the participating public.
We plant the rain before we plant the plants!
This planting of rain, trees, understory, & wildflowers is occurring in the West University neighborhood (which is within the same watershed as the Dunbar/Spring neighborhood – so we are all part of the same larger and interconnected waterhood),
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.
NOTE: there may be a film crew documenting the planting

We’ll start with a brief planting demonstration led by Brad Lancaster then plant. 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 ten is approximate (with a good showing of folks we’ll likely finish up early as we did at the last planting).
Cost: FREE—plus your planting help
Come join us in planting native shade trees, understory vegetation, wildflowers, 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 reduce water consumption as we reduce downstream flooding we naturally bioremediate/filter pollutants, and help indirectly and directly recharge our groundwater. Thus far this annual event has resulted in over 1,800 trees being planted in our neighborhood/waterhood, thousands of understory plants, and contributed to annually harvesting over one and a quarter million gallons of stormwater that used to go to the stormdrain—let’s keep going!
Thanks to Little John Excavating for doing the basin excavation, Churchman Sand & Gravel for catalina granite rock, Dunbar/Spring Neighborhood Foresters for the mesquite branches, and Dryland Design for doing the excellent rockwork and logwork.

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).

Celebración del DÍA DE LA TIERRA, Huerto Roma Verde, Mexico City, Mexico
2026-04-22 14:00 - 16:00 | Jalapa 234, Centro Urbano Pdte. Juárez, Roma Sur, Alc. Cuauhtémoc, 06760 Ciudad de México
Celebración del DÍA DE LA TIERRA, tour, and discussions at HUERTO ROMA VERDE – an urban garden

Open to public.

HUERTO ROMA VERDE
Jalapa 234, Centro Urbano Pdte. Juárez, Roma Sur,
Alc. Cuauhtémoc, 06760 Ciudad de México

Book release, signing, & presentation at UNAM - National Autonomous University of Mexico in Mexico City, Mexico
2026-04-23 11:00 - 12:30 | AZ
Brad Lancaster, author of “Cosecha de agua de lluvia para zonas áridas y más allá“; and distinguished panelists including Rosa Morales, Directora, YZ Proyecdtos de Dearrollo A.C.; Mtra. Flavia Tudela Rivadeneyra, Coordinadora del Colegio de Geografía, Facultad de Filosofía y Letras UNAM; Mtro. Eduardo Vázquez, Director General, Agua Capital; Mtro. Jorge Alberto Arriaga Medina, Coordinador Ejectivo, Red del Agua UNAM; Mtro. Delfín Montañana, Director de Educación Socioambiental y Sensibilización, Isla Urbana; Lic. Jennifer White, Directora General, Isla Urbana will speak at the book release, which will be followed by a book sales and signings with Brad Lancaster.

This event will be recorded.

Re-hydrating and Re-enlivening Our Communities with Neighborhood Rain-watered Native Food Forestry - virtual presentation
2026-05-10 12:30 - 14:00 | Global Earth Repair Convergence
Re-hydrating and Re-enlivening Our Communities with Rain-watered Neighborhood Food Forestry

This presentation is about neighborhood forestry efforts empowering citizens, contractors, & policy makers 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.

Get more info & register at:
https://www.globalearthrepairconvergence.com/

Sustainable Urban Landscape Conference - Oklahoma City, Oklahoma
2026-06-26 - 2026-06-27 | Metro Tech Springlake Campus, Oklahoma City, Oklahoma
Brad Lancaster will give two keynote presentations at this event.
More information at:
https://www.okcbeautiful.com/sustainable-urban-landscape-conference

More Life Less Lawn - virtual event
2026-06-30 | AZ
Brad will give the following virtual presentation for this multi-month Less Lawn More Life program…
Turning Drains Into Sponges and Water Scarcity Into Water Abundance
This inspiring presentation shares eight universal principles of water harvesting along with simple strategies that turn water scarcity into water abundance, and floods into opportunity. They empower you to create integrated water-sustainable landscape plans at home and throughout your community. Rainwater harvesting is the process of capturing rain and making the most of it as close as possible to where it falls. Greywater harvesting is the process of directing water from household sink, bathtub, shower, and washing-machine drains into the soils of the landscape where the water is naturally filtered and reused to generate more on-site resources. The two work hand in hand, and can reduce our water consumption by 30 to 70%! You’ll see examples enhancing local food security, passively cooling cities in summer, reducing costs of living and energy consumption, controlling erosion, averting flooding, reviving dead waterways, minimizing water pollution, building community, creating celebration, and more.
(Duration: 40 minutes plus Q&A)

For more on the multi-month event/program see:
https://www.lesslawnmorelife.com/

For more on Brad’s webinar see:
https://www.joinwildr.com/events/llml-rainwater

Water Harvesting Design Certification Course – Tucson, Arizona
2026-10-05 - 2026-10-17 | AZ
For more info on this Watershed Management Group course, plus how to register see:
https://watershedmg.org/events/water-harvesting-design-certification-october-2026

Brad will teach October 12, and he will also offer a guided tour of his place and some of his neighborhood’s rain-irrigated native food forest work, Sunday October 18th.
Sign up for the tour here.

Guided Water-Harvesting Home & Neighborhood Block Tour with Brad Lancaster – Tucson, AZ
2026-10-18 08:00 - 10:00 | AZ
WHEN: 8am – 10am, Sunday, October 18, 2026
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.

I will post a BUY BUTTON here about a month before the event

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 1,800 trees and thousands 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
• the new SPANISH EDITION of his book Cosecha de agua de lluvia para zonas áridas y más allá
• Plant the Rain t-shirts, caps, and stickers
• Siembra la lluvia 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)…
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KcAMXm9zITg&t=15s

Water Harvesting Design Certification Course – Tucson, Arizona
2026-11-09 - 2026-11-21 | AZ
For more info on this Watershed Management Group course, plus how to register see:
https://watershedmg.org/events/water-harvesting-design-certification-november-2026

Brad will teach November 16, and he will also offer a guided tour of his place and some of his neighborhood’s rain-irrigated native food forest work, Sunday October 18th.
Sign up for the tour here.

Guided Water-Harvesting Home & Neighborhood Block Tour with Brad Lancaster – Tucson, AZ
2026-11-22 08:00 - 10:00 | AZ
WHEN: 8am – 10am, Sunday, November 22, 2026
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.

I will post a BUY BUTTON here about a month before the event

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 1,800 trees and thousands 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
• the new SPANISH EDITION of his book Cosecha de agua de lluvia para zonas áridas y más allá
• Plant the Rain t-shirts, caps, and stickers
• Siembra la lluvia 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)…
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KcAMXm9zITg&t=15s
