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If the sight of this winter's torrential rains left you pining for a way to capture the precious overflows, you are not alone.
UC Santa Cruz alum Daniel Mountjoy is working to do just that—on a scale that has the potential to ease the state's increasingly persistent cycles of deluge and drought.
The idea is to divert water from overflowing rivers onto fallow farmland, where it seeps into the soil and replenishes depleted aquifers. These "underground reservoirs" function like savings accounts, storing a valued resource for lean times.
"The goal is balance. We want to redirect surplus water, fill underground basins, and have that water available to farmers during drought years," says Mountjoy (BA, environmental studies, 1985), director of resource stewardship at Sustainable Conservation, a San Francisco-based nonprofit focused on solving resource management problems.
Mountjoy sees his role as facilitating a unique coalition—including farmers, environmentalists, academics, and water managers—that is developing and testing the strategy, called "on-farm recharge."
The strategy is in its infancy, but models show it has the capacity to capture enough river water between November and March to offset 20 percent of the annual "overdraft" pumped out of critical areas of the San Joaquin Valley.
Maybe they should follow the example of the ancient people on the Arabian Peninsula and build lots and lots of check dams.
(Score: 5, Interesting) by c0lo on Saturday March 25 2017, @01:25AM
Speaking about "rural" properties - a second-hand IBC [wikipedia.org] good enough for rain water can be bought for around AUD80 (search for it on gumtree). Assuming another AUD20/tank for PVC pipes and connections AUD3200 is good enough for 32000 litres. If you don't want to stack them one on top of the other (max height of 3), you'll need a 7mx7m square to dedicate to the "composite tank".
I used them on a farmlet (no home) to capture rain water for irrigation purposes. I got rid of piping and put a rain capture sail for every one of them:
- individual frame - non-structural timber from Bunnings, 2.4M length - about AUD60, including screw and bolts.
- LDPE woven dropsheet acting as sail + silicone sealant (diluted in Xylene for easier spreading) + white pigment (zinc or titanium oxide) mixed in silicone - spread a 1-2 millimeter coating on the sail to make an UV stabilized tarp - about AUD6/sail
- elbow-grease of about 6 amateur-hours / piece.
Total price for a 1 cubic meter of... "high tech water capture system" - lets say AUD150 and the water tank is close to where watering will be needed.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford