Rain Water Harvesting; How not to do it in Los Angeles

" Progressive gardeners who haven’t yet bought their barrel are made to feel wasteful and negligent for failing to acquire the latest in an endless series of products designed to save the planet. Thanks to relentless marketing, rain barrels are enjoying a potent dose of moral buzz that is fast turning them into a 21st Century version of the Great Tulip Mania. "

Disclaimer; I appreciate the efforts of those who have tried to create low cost and do-it yourself systems and do not mean to sound mocking. That being said, I think that the proliferation of make-do rain water harvest systems will ultimately create a bad impression on those considering using this technology. Further, the cheap rain barrels promoted by the various officials in Los Angeles are seen more and more often discarded as they do not have the crucial insect netting, an overflow and they are ugly. They look more like industrial vats used for storing chemicals and they are not what the average homeowner would want to see up against their house in Southern California. I would further argue that small cheap rain barrels are not green as they are often thrown away into landfills after a season or two.
As I share a common goal with other activists who want promote this micro-economy ( or mega trend ) I wanted to present this; How NOT to Harvest Rainwater in Los Angeles.

Example #1

This is a well crafted system with a solid block foundation, high quality plumbing fittings. My issue is that if this were placed on the side of a Malibu home the neighbors would at the least not be inspired to do a rain water harvesting project in their own yard. In fact, they probably would file a complaint. In certain parts, people might mistake it for a still making Moonshine. It is just not aesthetically pleasing.

This is contestant number two.  This tilting, industrial looking contraption is placed right next to the entry sidewalk.Perhaps eventually the bushes will grow around it.

Example 3

Plastic bottle downspout leads to rain barrel. Just...ick.

The average small home in L.A. yields 8,000 gallons, minimum, per year of rain water. A system should start at one thousand gallons, be designed to be aesthetically pleasing and be the primary source of irrigation water for the landscaping. A float valve is used to keep enough water in the tank(s) between rains to allow them to be used year-round with a water conserving irrigation design.

1,100 Gallon cistern in El Cajon, Ca

620 Gallon Slim Tank, Orange, CA

 Nothing is without its trial and errors.  
If the drought continues, the costs of these systems will increase dramatically.


Rain water harvest systems we have installed can be viewed here and are now located in Orange, Yorba Linda, Tustin, Anaheim, La Canada Flintridge, Huntington Beach, Costa Mesa, Los Angeles, North San Diego, Hollywood, Fountain Valley and Newport Beach and MORE! We are fully licensed for seamless gutter work. Rainwater harvesting locations recently in La Mesa, National City, Encinitas, Escondido, Carslbad, Hollywood, Temecula, Point Loma and MORE.

First Flush Devices

The results of water quality tests. First flush verses no first flush.

The center pipe is a " first flush device ". It contains the first few gallons of rain water that have a higher bacteria content and solids that may create sediment in your rain water harvest system.


The effects on water quality are non-existent if your intention is to drink the water.

Our subjects were one home with half round gutters, a high quality gutter screen and no first flush and a home with regular ogee style gutters, no screen, but a first flush device.When using a standard test kit used to detect coliform bacteria we found that tanks connected with first flush devices and those without both had contamination. Coliform bacteria are those nasty little critters that make you have to run to the bathroom.
We used kits supplied to the missionary teams at www.peacewater.org to test two rain water harvesting systems installed in Southern California. The test was a simple pass or fail test. If the bags turned black, they were unfit for human consumption. Our subjects were one home with half round gutters, a high quality gutter screen and no first flush and a home with regular ogee style gutters, no screen, but a first flush device.

First flush devices are effective at minimizing sediment in rain tanks.

I always recommend a first flush device as part of a complete system. In this economy I am sensitive to the economic realites and I suggest the customer start with as large a tank as they have space for, as the MATH usually overwhelms are homeowners ability to store water.

By that I mean to make rain water harvesting be practical you need larger storage systems, to make it through dry months. However, few homeowners have the real estate, or space, to store the amount of water that comes off your roof. Therefor, the amount of water coming off your roof will be greater than the average ability to store.

That basic equation again; if you have ten inches of rain per year and you have one thousand square feet of roof your yield of rain water will be about 7,300 gallons per year ( and 7,300 gallons per year is 20 gallons averaged per day over 365 days ). So, a storage system of about one thousand to three thousand gallons seems optimal for a home in a climate that gets ten inches of rain per year. As a large above ground system may between one a five thousand dollars my suggestion is that the homeowner look at their rain water harvesting system as modular; get the largest tanks and best rain gutters you can afford and add a pump, first flush, gutter screen later if that is required due to budget constraints. If you " daisy chain " multiple tanks together be sure to offer the clients optional ball valves between each tank. This allows individual tanks to be cleaned or moved without having to drain the whole system.

Then we let the bag sit at room temp for two days. The results were disconcerting, because the tech team at www.peacewater.org are trying to see if this technology can be used to provide drinking water for people who have no reliable source of clean water.

The results of the Hach tests were showing coliform bacteria in both samples. So we proved the water is unsafe to drink without filtration, but technical data done by other entities indicate that first flush devices help reduce other types of measurable contaminations including solids that create sediment inside large rain cisterns or tanks.
For emergency filtration of rain water for drinking I recommend you purchase a Sawyer type filter and have clean buckets ready in kit, or have stove and fuel to boil the water.


As far as the water quality of rain water for gardening it seems obvious that the plants love the chemistry of the bird dropping and other biomass that make up the sediment of a large rain tank. My final opinion is that the priorities should be having large tanks first, a filtration system secon and a distribution system, like a pump, last.

There are companies producing high quality first flush devices for sale such as www.rainharvesting.com. I really admire their under ground first flush diverters and the technical data they have assembled.

Rain Water Harvesting; The Math

The math on rain water harvesting is very important if people are to embrace this technology. A main stumbling block in my sales is that people assume that there is not enough rain in Southern California to warrant investment in the harvesting of rain water. Allow me to demonstrate that this thinking is wrong.

Please consider;
1000 square feet of roof yield 623 gallons of water per inch of rain.
The  whole calculation goes like this; Roof area (ft square) X rainfall ( ft ) X 7.48 gal/ft+ total rainwater ( gal ).

For example, if you want to calculate how much rainwater in gallons falls on your 55-by-80-foot ( 4400-square-foot) lot in a normal year where rain fall averages 12 inches. the calculation would look like this;
4,400-square-foot catchment area X 1 foot of average rainfall X 7.48 gallons per cubic foot = 32,912 gallons of rain falling on the site in an average year rain.
Credit on the above data.


So one of the key concepts is to live within your site's water budget.

That means using your properties annual average rainfall as the basis of what plants get used in your yard. Excess water collected from the roof is then used ( in theory ) to water the plants that require more than the natural rainfall ( such as fruit trees and vegetable gardens ) so that for the ornamental landscaping no further use of city water is required to have a lush and attractive yard.

Consume less water on your property than falls on your property in an average year of rainfall.

Rain water helps powers this food garden in San Clemente Califonia. 

Currently some cities offer rebates towards the implementation of rain water systems. You can help facilitate this by contacting your representative and letting them know your town wants those rebates too! Solar is far more expensive and out of reach for many into today's harsh Southern California economy.

Please consider the following;

1. Rainwater ( and hail, sleet and snowfall ) is delivered to us free of charge, eliminating the need for costly distribution systems. Did you know that 20% of all energy consumed in California is used to transport, treat or store water?
2. Rainwater is the highest-quality source of irrigation water
3. Rain water is salt-free and can help flush plant damaging salts from the root zone in alkaline soils
4. Rainwater is a natural fertilizer containing sulfur, beneficial microorganisms, mineral nutrients, and nitrogen
5. Rainwater harvesting helps reduce utility bills
6. Rainwater harvesting reduces flooding by reducing flow to streets and storm drains
7. Rainwater harvesting reduces nonpoint-source pollution of stormwater
8. Rainwater harvesting provides a water source when well, surface, or municipal water is contaminated or unreliable ( such as after a major Earthquake )
9. Water harvesting helps utilitys reduce summer peak demands for water and reduces the volume of wastewater that needs to be treated at water treatment plants
10. Water harvesting is fun! The food from my garden tastes better than store bought food and we have emergency water storage

This is our own family  rain garden. This year we produced onions, potatoes, strawberries, rosemarry, mint, thyme, basil, oregeno, sage, carrots and more. We just planted peppers and tomatoes for the summer growing season.

Using a three thousand square foot home in Yorba Linda California as  a model we conclude that if that home harvested just one third the home into a rain tank or cistern system they would have 8,700 gallons yield per year.  These are facts. Here is a link to the rainfall data; click here. That is 23.83 gallon of  fresh water available for use every single day.

That is why larger systems make sense.

More from our own raised flower beds this year;

lettuce and oregeno

Potatoes ( foreground ) mint and green onions

Tomatoes and fresh basil from the garden with mozzarella cheese ( yummy! )

Rain Water Harvesting Storage Tanks Mitigate The Big One?

Part of these blogs posts objective is to share some of the information I learn, being in the water business. The other part is to sell rain barrels. I do believe that you should consider the following information irregardless of your intentions about buying rain barrels. If you live in California, please read;

Currently there are raging debates about the delta Smelt, the California levee system and if a canal or aquaduct should be created to bypass the fragile levees. How does this effect Southern California people? Well, imagine water faucets in your home that don't work.

We know that a major Earthquake will eventually happen, and that it could destroy the levee systems and allow sea water to contaminate our drinking water. Imagine 20 million people in Southern California without drinkable water. We also know that major, even historic cuts to Californias water infrastructure loom in the immediate future. There are no plans to address any of these issues, and given the feckless nature of our political class, things will only get worse.

Of course, my interest is in getting people to change the way they think about rain and rain gutters. I confess I have an agenda. I asked Jeff Helton, the regional sales manager at Bushman rain tanks what it would take to get the average Southern California person serious about collecting and storing rainwater and his answer made sense. He said, " this tract that I live in in Murietta Valley almost didn't get built because they could not get an allocation of water. New rules say that before you can build you must plan for the water. Once they start building again the water rationing will return in full force and get people off the fence about rainwater harvesting. "

Then, as I usually do I did some research and found that in an average year, water shares were issued for eight times more water than existed. Check it out yourself;

The reality is, poor planning, incompetence and a dismal failure of leadership has set California up for a epic disaster and everybody has to do their share to reduce and conserve water, for our own sakes. We have to have our own micro-infrastructure ( our homes ) yield water to decrease the dependence on a government that fails to plan, fails to act or is planning on failure. They seem to prefer endless crisis orientated realities rather than meeting these challenges head on. We all agree that the economy will not be sound until there are homes being built, but the catch 22 is that in reality there are very few homes that can be built with our infrastructure.

key thoughts: micro-infrastructure. perma-culture. self-reliance



Get this, when you read about foreign banks and Wall Street tycoons getting trillions in so called bailouts remember; " Next year water infrastructure projects and programs are expected to see massive budget cuts as President Obama has proposed slashing infrastructure spending at the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers; the Drinking Water State Revolving Fund (SRF) will see nearly $400 million cuts and the Clean Water SRF will be cut nearly $600 million; according to Lisa Jackson, the EPA administrator, these cuts in SRF budgets reflect a return to a more "sustainable level"; states worry that cuts will make it difficult to fund future infrastructure upgrades; reports have shown that the United States faces a $500 billion shortfall for water infrastructure funding over the next twenty years ".
Check it out here.

If the levee situation is not addressed, if more storage is not built then there can be no new construction in  California. As the above text from homeland Security indicates, the money got spent elsewhere. These decisions are going to result in massive economic hardship and potential loss of life when the big one hits and those of us in Los Angeles look to the feds to save us, like they did in Katrina.

Every home in Southern California needs to be equipped with a rain water harvesting system with at least 1000 gallons of capacity. It is socially responsible to get rid of your grass, plant native plants that are conditioned for our desert climate. Every home should have a basic gray water system where the water from their laundry discharge is fed through pipes that water food bearing gardens.
I say 1000 gallons minimum based on a typical rain year in Anaheim. You need a large capacity to carry over through dry months, to be prepared for a water disaster. The math suggests that if 1000 square feet of roof were harvested, in a typical rain year in Anaheim California that roof would yield 8700 gallons.

IMPORTANT VIDEO! PLEASE TAKE A FEW MINUTES TO WATCH.

The Cycle of Insanity: The Real Story of Water from Surfrider Foundation on Vimeo.



Supporting links;
http://www.greendiary.com/entry/earthquake-in-california-could-cause-another-katrina-in-next-50-years/
http://www.californiaprogressreport.com/site/node/8640
http://www.homelandsecuritynewswire.com/water-infrastructure-budgets-see-massive-cuts-2012

Water Storage = Earthquake and Emergency Preparedness

Tuesday, March 22, 2011

Earthquake and Emergency Preparedness

Earthquake Preparedness - Water is the Key to Survival! 

Loss of safe drinking water is deadly. Most individuals will begin to experience side effects from dehydration after 36 hours. Starvation can be delayed by several days or weeks provided there is an ample, safe water supply. At the bare minimum, you should store one gallon, per person, per day, for seven days . A three-week supply is ideal. After an earthquake, city water is vulnerable to contaminants through ruptured pipes and adulterated filtering systems. Do not take adequate water supplies for granted. If you store an ample amount for your family beforehand, you've already greatly increased your family's chance of survival after an earthquake.

I noticed with interest this picture and quote about the conflict in LIBYA;

''Residents live on canned food and rainwater tanks,' he said. Gaddafi's brigades storm residential areas knowing that they won't be bombed there. 'People live in total darkness in terms of communications and electricity.'

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1368633/Libya-war-US-chopper-shoots-6-villagers-welcomed-Air-Force-F-15-crash-pilots.html#ixzz1HNPdVWgv

So, this isn't Libya; I get it. But we do live in Earthquake country and the vast majority of people I question do not realize that their tap water depends on electricity. No power = no water. The majority have no food storage beyond whats in the freezer and on the pantry shelf.  To those who think that the government will be there on a white horse to protect them should remember hurricane Katrina and the horrendous suffering of those who choose to be in denial about the impending disaster they were warned about.

So in this post Japan, post Christchurch, post Chile earthquakes we should all take stock of our capabilities. We decided to fill this 67 gallon rain tank with potable water and bolt it to the garage wall. We have three months food rations and an additional 42 gallons of water in storage, as well as protection, first aid and battery powered communication chargers, lights and radios. We also have 10 gallons of propane fuel, 40 lbs of charcoal, fertilizer and fast growing leafy vegetables in storage.

 Consider ordering one of these slim tanks to mount inside your garage as emergency water storage. They are $268.00 each plus shipping if applicable and I pay all sales tax.

Here is what FEMA has to say;

How Much Water do I Need?

You should have at least a three-day supply of water and you should store at least one gallon of water per person per day. A normally active person needs at least one-half gallon of water daily just for drinking.
Additionally, in determining adequate quantities, take the following into account:

• Individual needs vary, depending on age, physical condition, activity, diet, and climate.
• Children, nursing mothers, and ill people need more water.
• Very hot temperatures can double the amount of water needed.
• A medical emergency might require additional water.

In more remote communities or those typically affected by wildfires a water storage system may be the only water that is available to save your home. Larger tanks can be equipped with a fire hydrant outlet that the pumper trucks can hook up to.

Saved water can save your home, and maybe even your life.

Water Woes

US farmers fear the return of the Dust Bowl

For years the Ogallala Aquifer, the world’s largest underground body of fresh water, has irrigated thousands of square miles of American farmland. Now it is running dry.

The water in the Ogallala aquifer is being traded and sold by oil tycoons and mega corporations. This massive underground water deposit supplies water to the corn belt in Nebraska and other states, who in turn supply grain and corn to poor nations around the world. All the states that tap into this body of water have management plans that restrict and regulate how much can be harvested except Texas. The Lone Star state allows whoever has a right to the water to pull as much of it as they want and sell it to the highest bidder. The problem is that other states are being impacted and it trickles down to higher food prices in places that simply cannot be absorbed, like Africa and financially devastated areas in the United States. I have always been a conservative and a capitalist ( I voted for George W. Bush in both elections, and I am a gun owner and small business person ) but I now recognize that there are no limits to personal greed, and that sometimes there indeed must be sane limits to capitalism.

1997 map of the Ogallala Aquifer

If you'd care to read more about this aquifer and see other maps showing just how much this body of water has been depleted please click here.  The problem isn't just in the small town of Happy Texas where; " from the early 1950s the boom was on. Some of the descendants of Dust Bowl survivors became millionaire landowners. 'Since then,' says David Brauer of the US Agriculture Department agency, the Ogallala Research Service, 'we have drained enough water to half-fill Lake Erie of the Great Lakes.' Billions upon billions of gallons – or, as they prefer to measure it, acre-feet of water, each one equivalent to a football field flooded a foot deep – have been pumped. 'The problem,' he goes on, 'is that in a brief half-century we have drawn the Ogallala level down from an average of 240ft to about 80.'
Brauer's agency was set up in direct response to the Dust Bowl, with the brief of finding ways to make sure that the devastation never happens again. If it does, the impact on the world's food supply will be far greater. The irrigated Plains grow 20 per cent of American grain and corn (maize), and America's 'industrial' agriculture dominates international markets. A collapse of those markets would lead to starvation in Africa and anywhere else where a meal depends on cheap American exports. 'The Ogallala supply is going to run out and the Plains will become uneconomical to farm,' Brauer says. 'That is beyond reasonable argument. Our goal now is to engineer a soft landing. That's all we can do.'"  Source of quote.

So, the reality is that our senseless water policies are going to result in starvation and deaths in poor countries like Africa and result in turmoil and economic hardship for average Americans. The town of Happy Texas gets about 10" per rain a year and the choices are stark; adopt advanced permaculture crop technologies and harvest the rain or return to the dust bowl era and watch that dying town perish for once and all.

Of course, the agencies that define policy and regulate consumption can't agree on anything and there is in-fighting and politics involved in the decisions; from this article:

 "

“ Eight independent scientists worked on this report and have reached the same conclusion that real irrigation experts have been saying for years: that the water use efficiency potential in agriculture is limited.
The PPIC report is criticized because it doesn’t draw the same conclusions that the Pacific Institute wants. It is important to note that the Pacific Institute’s conclusions are based on flawed assumptions that have been identified by real irrigation experts from the California State University system and the University of California. A 2008 report by the Pacific Institute claimed that agricultural water use efficiency could generate 4-6 million acre-feet of water per year, a number they don’t even use themselves anymore because it was wrong.
Most, not all, excessive farm water is recaptured and reused. Is there still water conservation potential in agriculture? You bet. Is it all cost effective? Not yet but as water conservation technology becomes available and affordable, farmers willingly adopt it. … “

It would be amusing if the situation were not so serious. This is life and death. We have no choice but to change the way we think about and use water. The vast aquifers under California are so depleted that salt water from the Pacific Ocean is seeping into them and raising the salinity levels; crops don't grow in salt water. See here for the U.S. Geological Survey Fact Sheet # 030-02


So, what is my interest in Texas water? I obviously have a financial interest in rain water harvesting as I am a seller of barrels, but I don't sell in Texas. My interest is as a human being because I know that our policies and practices have huge impacts on other people; there will be starvation and deaths because of the United States water policy, this is not really in dispute. Wars will be fought over water.

Wouldn't be nice if we just changed the way we think?

I also don't mean to imply that there is 100% agreement on what is causing the aquifer depletion. Some scientists suggest that as the earths crust cools as our planet ages more surface water is pulled into the mantel.
There is evidence that periodically the core of the earth heats up and much of the aquifer water is expelled from the mantel causing massive and relatively sudden rising of the sea levels. If it rained for forty days and forty nights things would be really muddy and flooded, but the mountains would not be covered with water; it would take something more dramatic, like the under ground oceans unleashing their contents.
"
When the planet was young, steam came from the deep interior to the surface as volcanic gas and eventually produced today's oceans. But as Earth's interior ages and cools, it becomes easier for water to return below the surface.
"So, rather than degassing, now [Earth] may be losing water into the mantle," Sleep said.
This gradual suction of water back below the surface may be a good thing for Earth's geological stability, he notes."


You can't make the oil billionaire and corporate raider T Boone Pickens stop speculating on Texas water, but you can do your part by getting rid of grass, changing to native drought tolerant plants and capturing as much water as you can so that instead of letting the water run along paved roads and into concrete culverts you take personal responsibility and help get that water where it belongs; into the soil under your feet.
You can also write the law makers in Texas and let them know that their " right to capture " law is ignorant, outdated and is going possibly result in starvation and deaths in millions of people. Remember that Mr. Pickens is absolutely unconcerned about killing off small farming communities in his quest to make billions on water rights when you hear his name being mentioned as possible presidential material. He doesn't care about the states that surround Texas or that there are millions of Americans who are beginning to find food and fuel prices unsustainable.

Please visit www.peacewater.org and make a contribution so that they can continue to educate people, save lives and make the world a HAPPY place! It is a non-profit organization that promotes health drinking water, rain water harvesting and outreach to Churches. A.B. Raingutters is not a representative of peacewater.org and  my business is not endorsed by their organization in any official capacity. I assist the technology team in determining which efforts will be funded and implemented and am pleased to be part of the mission to Rwanda in May. 

Earthworks in Rain Water Harvesting

This provides general information on Earthworks in the context of Rain Water Harvesting ( RWH ) and in specific information about Rwanda for the Technology Team for the upcoming project www.peacewater.org is leading to help bring clean water to the people of Rwanda and beyond.
Underlined text are links to expanded information.


Rain Water Harvesting Earthworks

One of the main purposes of Earthworks in rain water harvesting is to replenish ground water storage aquifers in areas where large numbers of wells are drilled. Another purpose is to capture rainwater in terraces and directly water crops planted on them.

Excessive drilling and harvesting of underground aquifers can lead to drought and unsustainable situations for people dependent on wells for their drinking water. The must sustainable approach involves a combination of sensible and educated planning of crops and rotation, well drilling and ground water replenishment. A water harvesting Earthwork without associated vegetation is dead. It can quickly erode, clog with slit, breed mosquitos and excessively evaporate water. Vegetation stabilizes soil; roots expand, canopies grow, leaves fall and new top soil is formed. Insects attract birds and plants attract bees and the fresh water attracts wildlife completing the cycle.

Some Types of Earthworks;

Infiltration Basin

Infiltration Basins

Infiltration basins help prevent flooding and downstream erosion, and improve water quality in adjacent waterways. It is essentially a shallow artificial pond that is designed to infiltrate storm water though permeable soils into the groundwater aquifer. Infiltration basins do not discharge to a surface water body under most storm conditions, but are designed with overflow structures (pipes, weirs, etc.) that operate during flood conditions.

For in depth explanations of infiltration basins click here.

Terraces

A terrace, for the purposes of rain water harvesting Earthworks are relatively flat shelves built parallel to contour on a slope. The purpose is to create a level planting area to intercept direct rainfall and runoff from a slope and is suitable for up to a 48.8% grade but are not suitable to areas prone to waterlogging.

For in depth explanation of terraces in rain water harvesting context and beyond click here. 

Radial planted terrace in Rwanda

 

Water-Harvesting Swales, Soil Conservation Swales and Diversion Ditches

Diversion Swales and soil imprinting are more likely used in areas where preventing or reversing desertification is the issue.

A 'swale' is simply a long, shallow depression in the ground, designed to collect or redirect water. In general, permaculture swales are used to mimic the water-collecting and -holding abilities of a thick forest mulch.

Swales are most useful in reforestation of degraded, mostly-bare, arid or semi-arid hillsides, to direct water to trees (this water would otherwise run off the bare soil and be lost to the local landscape). In a healthy forest with a thick mulch of leaves or needles covering the ground, very little runoff occurs and swales would usually be unnecessary. A healthy forest is very good at managing its own water resources, and it is usually only Earth that is stripped of vegetation that needs to be rehabilitated.

For permacultural purposes, there are three main types of swale used in water-management earthworks:

• on-contour, water-harvesting permaculture swales;
• gently sloped water-transporting swales (or diversion ditches); and
• soil conservation swales (a modified form of diversion ditch).
• For an in depth explanation of bio-swales click here. 

Bioswale

Check Dams

A check dam is a small dam, which can be either temporary or permanent, built across a minor channel, swale, bioswale, or drainage ditch. Similar to drop structures in purpose, they reduce erosion and gullying in the channel and allow sediments and pollutants to settle. They also lower the speed of water flow during storm events. These features help the root systems of plants upslope of the check dam by charging the water into the soil.

Check Dam

For a expert explanation of a check dam click here.

Desertification in Rwanda?

The U.N. Plan

The Government of Rwanda , in 2010- guided by a UN pilot project that mapped and developed a comprehensive plan for land suitability and use - has allocated US$25 million to relocate human settlements from the Gishwati Forest. Those resources were expended to correct years of deforestation that is causing erosion, landslides, deaths and poor water quality.

A knowledge base about the importance of vegetation and rain water harvesting Earthworks would possibly have rendered these millions available for use elsewhere. Application of these concepts may save hundreds of millions of dollars going forward.

The NASA study

1978, the Gishwati Forest had substantial ground cover and still remained largely intact in 1986. But in the 15 years that elapsed between the genocide and 2001—wave after wave of refugees arrived in Gishwati Forest and began clearing it, often for subsistence farming. By 2001, only a small circular patch of native forest remained—1,500 acres of the forest’s original 250,000. To view photos and read the NASA study, click here.

Not so much an issue in the near term, but in the long term erosion, water quality and food resources all stand to be major issues and can be mitigated through the use of rain water harvesting Earthworks.

 

For further reading please see Brad Lancasters website.