Fighting Drought With an Ancient Practice: Harvesting the Rain | Retro Report

In Tacoma, Washington it is illegal to collect the water from your roof because it belongs to the county. They also charge a "storm water fee" to pay for the storm drains on the streets. I ran all the downspouts into the old, unused septic tank and stopped having to water the back lawn. Of course I didnt bother the city asking for permits.

In Indonesia there is an old man fighting for water conservation by plant a lot of Banyan trees on a barren mountain, amazingly after a few years it was done so many watersprings spring up from places that used to be dry. We called him Mbah Sadiman, you can find his success stories on youtube. Let's protect our water.

this reminds me of the role of beavers on North America and western Eurasia. To capture the water during the rainy season, to slow down the surface flow and associated erosion, is vital. “Making water go further” means fundamentally altering regional hydrology with some quite simple steps: especially saving rainwater!

Amazing! Sometimes going back in time is better than futuristic ideas.

I've been doing rainwater catchment for over 15 years here in KS. I was born and raised in Tempe AZ so my life was focused on the real scarcity of water. I wish more people would do this. It just makes sense. We can't wait until there is a crisis, we need to do it now so there isn't a crisis! Thank you for sharing this!!

This is awesome. I couldn't get fresh water for my plants and then I realized and started collecting water from air conditioning outlet of neighbors to water my plants.

We Indians have Baolis aka Step-wells and temple/field tanks, in Odisha, we call them Pushkarinis( from Sanskrit), and Pokharis/Gardias(in Odia) from the 3rd century BCE times, as in Khandagiri and Udayagiri regions of Bhubaneswar. Basically, rain water was collected at a higher place and made to flow through small canals into farmer fields or made stagnant into pools for public and temple uses. Even, dams constructed by Kings like our kings Prataparudra Deva in the 13th centuryAD, for instance. They all still help in water conservation.

This is normal in Australia because our water, utlities etc have all gone up so much in price.....It's actually cheaper to sustain yourself with solar electricity, harvesting water etc.

Water is such a precious resorce & we squander it daily. Love the 'ripple effect' of the community led, hands on education programs. 🌱🌳🌴🦋🐞🌻💖

I'm in Australia too and have a rainwater tank connected to the gutters from the roof to supply my house as there is no town water. We've been doing it for many, many years. We also have swales instead of gutters in our streets in some areas that feed water into lakes down the road from our houses that attract native wildlife and allow plants to grow. We also have toilets that use less water. This is normal for us.

We need more ppl like him

my grandparents in Ireland had an above ground cement tank collecting water from roof down pipes. Served through an electric pump. It was used for bathing and dishes but not drinking. An open well, nearby, filled w spring water, always cold, was crisp and clear for consumption. All off-grid, except for electricity. Propane gas tanks for cooking stove in the kitchen. Coal buring range for heating water and baking or cooking, also heated linen closet and serviced radiators.

This is AWESOME, both what the Indian gentleman did in his "neck of the woods"and what Brad has done in Tucson, something similar needs to be done here in central Mexico, and was surprised to see the Water agency CEA, even offer help and advice on how to take advantage of the rainy season and catch the rainwater. Although 2022 was a drought year, only 8 days worth of rain vs.90 days worth in a normal rainy season, we could really make a difference and not pipe water in from a poor region here in my state with broken promises by politicians to better the life of those rural residents living there.

Supposedly, when the bison covered the western plains, they would dig numerous small pond. Counterintuitively, these ponds, despite exposing water directly to the air, actually conserved water, compared to the grasslands they replaced. An acre of pond, after all, has only an acre of surface area exposed to the air. But an acre of grassland has all the surface area of the grass, and some of the interior spaces of the grass -- much more area. Don't recall the name of the book where I read this, but the source of the historical information and modern analysis seemed authoritative, and the explanation seemed to, um, hold water.

Over here in Cape Town, South Africa, I dug a trench (swale) to catch water and put it back into the ground. I am the only one in my neighborhood to do this. The thing that bothers me is that Cape Town city is drilling into the aquifers with no idea how to recharge them. Politicians are short sighted and a large problem with all their in fighting instead of trying to work together. About 4 years ago we almost ran out of water in Cape Town and when the drought broke almost everybody reverted to their old ways of doing things. In Namibia they have recycled water for a long time and put it back in use and 40 years ago I told some engineers that we need to do the same, nothing happened. Politics and money got in the way, to do something 40 years ago would have been cheaper than to catch up now.

A water garden. Every school needs one. Beautiful. I will research this. ❤

Rainwater harvesting is great, the only problem is people usually think too small. In my country we collect rainwater from the whole roof and store it in underground concrete tanks. My house has 3000 sq ft of catchment area and 19,000 gallons of storage. We should have built even more storage volume because it frequently overflows in the wet part of the year and occasionally runs low in the dry part. We get 55" of rain per year.

I'm in SoCal (next door state and 6 ish hour drive from Tucson) and started Rainwater collecting and Harvesting last fall. It was so much better to use it because it's free, it's from nature providing down and I can use it to water my plants and garden. I bought a 50 gal tank and it got overfilled pretty fast. This year I'll be getting another 50 gal for this year's harvest.

Dr. Singh is amazing! And Mr. Lancaster did well to build on his wisdom

When I was renting on land in Florida,the dripping of air conditioner was continuous. I planted a lime tree to catch the dripping, a good way of watering plants, In southern Florida, an air conditioner produces 5 to 10 gallons of water daily ,