Rainwater Harvesting for Drylands and Beyond, Volume 2

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.Andy Lipkis is the founder and president of TreePeople.

“Harvesting rainwater was once a worldwide technology, but was replaced by pipes, canals, and sprinklers: an inefficient and wasteful strategy that results in running dry. In Rainwater Harvesting for Drylands and Beyond, Volume 2 Brad uses the concept of ‘planting water’ as a guiding principle in designing landscapes that passively harvest resources to grow more resources. Such brilliant, low-tech, regenerative systems are vital to hydrating the land and maximizing the benefit that water brings to plants, animals and people. Thus, this book is an excellent and comprehensive tool for all bucket and shovel ‘engineers’ to maximize the hydrological resource, reduce energy use and transform their once erosive landscapes into ones of stability, botanical diversity, and abundance.”—Arty Mangan, Bioneers Food and Farming Program Director