Tucson Rainwater Harvesting
April 15, 2007
Post Tags: rainwater-harvesting , the-living-sponge , tucson-rainwater , Tucson-water-consumption , Water-Conservation
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I ended up attending the Rainwater Harvesting presentation by Brad Lancaster on April 11th instead of April 10. It was an excellent presentation on the history of rainwater and Tucson.
Brad is a very interesting guy and I would recommend his book “Rainwater Harvesting for Drylands Volume 1 Guiding Principles to Welcome Rain into Your Life and Landscape” You can learn more about it at Harvesting Rainwater.
Brad shared the following information:
Tucson Rainwater
- There is more rainwater falling on Tucson than we consumes each year.
- Flowing wells got its name because there used to be artesian wells there.
- Tucson had gotten hotter by an average of 6 degrees since 1940
- The more water we harvest the less we need.
- Water harvesting isn’t water hording, it is just slowing it down.
- 25 - 35% of Tucson is paved over. Water runs off hard surfaces.
- The “living sponge” has been lost from much of our land in Tucson.
- The “living sponge” can be restored.
- A street will collect 1 million gallons of water in a mile of pavement.
- The aquifer drops between 4 and 6 feet a year.
- The aquifer around Tucson is approx. 300′.
- People used to get lost in the trees at the base of A mountain.
- The Santa Cruz river had running water year round in 1901
- I didn’t want to end the list at 13 so I added this one : )
The Living Sponge
The living sponge is usually the top 4″ of soil that holds and slows water. It is made up of a lot of living and organic material. Here is a good example of what happens when the living sponge is lost.
Tucson Water Conservation
We can conserve water by limiting our consumption of potable water and we can slow down the natural rainwater when it falls on the land.
We can rebuild the living sponge through
- less consumption with
- good home design,
- recirculation systems,
- with rainwater harvesting
- grey water reclamation systems
- landscaping practices
- to restore the living sponge
Is Tucson going to run out of water? No
Could water become very expensive? Yes
Could we manage our water resources better?
We already know the answer to that one.
Who is responsible to take action?
We all are.
April 16th, 2007 at 8:20 am
Good post. Interesting how times change and the photos pretty much say it all.
We’ve just had a huge Nor’Easter in Connecticut. How do I get the inch of water in my basement to Tuscon?
April 18th, 2007 at 5:26 pm
Athol,
Dehydrate it and ship it in a box.
March 10th, 2008 at 12:12 pm
Loomis tank has opened a store in Tucson at 2610 E. Ganley Rd. We supply a large verity of water storage tanks,from 300 to 10,000 gallons. With questions in water supply, water storage is going to become an essential. For more information please contact us at info@loomistank.com or call 1-866-883-8265