Dryland rain gardens harvest all water from burst water line!
By planting the rain before you plant (with water-harvesting earthworks) you will be able to harvest ALL free waters (such as rainwater, stormwater, greywater, air conditioning condensate, or in this case—broken water line runoff) that exist or appear on site.
We had just completed the passive water-harvesting earthworks (but had not yet planted them) at the Tumamoc Resilience Garden when a water line above the garden burst in the night, and filled the earthworks. The big flow from the broken pipe took the path of the stormwater that the garden and its earthworks were designed to capture. All worked wonderfully! No water was lost—all was harvested within the rain gardens.
In this video Brad Lancaster shows you the captured water, and describes nuances of his design that can help you with your passive water-harvesting designs and implementations.
The site is in the dryland city of Tucson, Arizona where average annual precipitation is 11 inches. Filming was done May 10, 2022 in the middle of our hot, dry season. Summer rains usually come the end of June or early July.
See the new, full-color, revised editions of Brad’s award-winning books
– available a deep discount, direct from Brad:
Volume 1
The big picture book. Helps you integrate the harvests of all your free on-site waters along with the sun, wind, shade, and more to grow regenerative abundance for all.
Volume 2
Step-by-step instructions and stories on how to design and implement many water-harvesting earthworks.
Includes and appendix on various tools such as laser levels, bunyip water levels, and A-frame levels enabling you to get your elevation relationships just right!