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Free Water: Amazing Rainwater Harvesting Action In Arizona

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Use Common Sense: Water Can Be Local Too!

"If you do it right, in an integrated way, it costs FAR less than the way we've been doing it" says Brad Lancaster about turning barren Arizona sidewalk space into a food producing orchard. With NO external water inputs.

Across the globe, water is taken from hundreds of miles away like everything else. The bulk of Tuscon's water for ex. is imported from the Colorado River, more than 300 miles away. The Tuscon Water company is the largest consumer of electricity in Arizona, and the largest emitter of carbon.

But more rain falls in Tuscon than the entire municipality consumes in a year! The whole picture makes no sense.

Brad Lancaster created an oasis of green, fed by the rainwater. He chose native, low maintenance food bearing plants and simply made some changes to the sidewalk so they can soak up what falls naturally. No external inputs are used.

What a brilliant experiment in how to make local water work for you! This abundant vegetation costs the city nothing and dramatically reduces flooding downstream. As a result, the city now promotes water harvesting They even require it in new developments!


--Bibi Farber

Brad Lancaster is the author of Harvesting For Drylands and Beyond
For more information see: www.harvestingrainwater.com
This video was produced by Andrew Brown