Rainwater Harvesting for Drylands and Beyond, Volume 1

Brad Lancaster is a dynamic teacher, consultant, and designer of regenerative systems. He’s taught throughout North America, Middle East, Asia, Europe, Africa, and Australia; worked with the City of Tucson and other municipalities to legalize, incentivize, and provide guidance on water-harvesting systems, demonstration sites, and policy; and designed edible rain-irrigated landscapes doubling as flood control and community-building strategies for housing developments, parks, schools, businesses, ranches, and neighborhoods. Brad’s aim is always to boost communities’ true health and wealth by using simple overlapping strategies to augment the region’s hydrology, ecosystems, and economies—living systems upon which we depend.Brad lives his talk on an oasis-like demonstration site he created with his brother’s family in downtown Tucson, Arizona. On this eighth of an acre and surrounding public right-of-way, they harvest 100,000 gallons of rainwater a year where just 11 inches per year fall from the sky. Brad is motivated in his work by the tens of thousands of people he has helped inspire to do likewise, go further, and continue our collective evolution.

“Brad Lancaster has published a revised, third edition of his authoritative book Rainwater Harvesting for Drylands and Beyond: Volume 1, Guiding Principles to Welcome Rain into Your Life and Landscape. Lancaster has decades of experience in planting rain in Tucson, Arizona. He began to counter poor waterscape management after meeting water farmer Zephaniah Phiri Maseko. This man’s wisdom, and his practice of long and thoughtful observation of land to understand how rain flows through it and shapes it, is at the core of Lancaster’s rainwater harvesting practice. Tucson receives more water from falling rain than its consumers use. But destruction of the region’s forest, and development of impermeable urban zones has led to water scarcity, as Lancaster explains in this Ted talk. His book addresses this problem. It tweaks Maseko’s principles of water infiltration to fit the needs of his Tucson home. This involves creating mulch-filled depressions in his garden where rainwater infiltrates, and where household greywater can be diverted. It also involves applying these practices in the public arena; for instance, diverting rainwater from streets to irrigate crop-bearing trees on public land. Rainwater Harvesting’s five chapters walk the reader through principles of rainwater infiltration, using Lancaster’s own projects as case studies. The book’s appendices, which have been further developed in this new, colour edition, offer another incredibly valuable resource. They describe, for instance, patterns of water and sediment flow and how to best utilize them; traditional Southwestern rainwater harvesting techniques; a list of plants and their water requirements, and information on the water-energy-carbon nexus and how domestic rainwater harvesting saves energy and money, while reducing CO2 emissions. In short, any household or community committed to living sustainably by conserving and recycling water should read this book.”—International Rainwater Harvesting Alliance (IRHA)