Rainwater Harvesting for Drylands and Beyond, Volume 1, 3rd Edition: Guiding Principles to Welcome Rain into Your Life and Landscape (9780977246458): Lancaster, Brad: Books

Excellent book. The 3rd edition has color pictures. When you hold this book you can feel that it is of excellent quality. Very nicely made and well worth the cost.

Given the miracle of modern infrastructure, it’s easy to become complacent about water sustainability and the needs of future generations. For me, that complacency was completely shattered in the first chapter of this book. Through carefully selected anecdotes highlighting the wonderful gift of desert rainfall, it became clear to me I was missing out!Ironically, my home was graded to shed rainwater off my property as quickly as possible- what a waste! In contrast, this book details simple earth-moving strategies for harvesting rainwater not only for landscape maintenance, but for food, shade, environmental awareness, and improved health. I put these into practice on my property and was inspired by the results.I followed up with my Home Owners Association and shared both the principles and photos of this first volume with the goal of realizing aesthetic and money-saving opportunities in common areas. Thanks to those ideas, our HOA subsequently approved the formation of a water-harvesting committee to work in these areas. Using the principles in this book, we continue leveraging thousands of dollars in water savings while also increasing our sense of community. As such, our HOA is now a more desirable place to live.The 3rd edition of volume 1 is chock-full of beautiful color photography and hand-drawn diagrams that clearly explain how you can realize similar benefits for your own home or community using techniques that, in most cases, require little more than gloves, a shovel, and inspiration sourced to this volume. After you install your first features, there’s nothing more fulfilling than going out in the rain and seeing how they work; monitoring the change in your landscape over time, and then sharing the results with your neighbors.This isn’t simply a technical reference, it’s a thoughtful labor of love and a welcome addition for anyone needing inspiration and guidance on making a difference.

Super helpful- great descriptions, diagrams, explanations, and real-world application. I’d definitely recommend it!

I have a hard time flipping through 2 pages without my mind absolutely blowing on ideas for water/wind/sun harvesting. I’ve read this book multiple times, some straight through, other times to browse and reference, and it’s so far a never ending supply of solutions for our home, garden and community. I’ve installed many different passive/active rainwater and greywater harvesting systems, and it’s really the guiding Eight Principles of Rainwater Harvesting that bind together a good design, more than any one technique. I should probably get the principles tattooed somewhere I can review them regularly, or I suppose a couple post-its will do…The updated version is phenomenal, with the beautiful illustrations popping off the pages. The Appendices on Wind, Passive Solar, and Water Calculations are very helpful, and stretch me to integrate more out of my designs.So creative, it’s guides like this that give me tremendous hope in an abundant today and tomorrow. Well done!

Brad Lancaster’s revised editions Volume 1 and 2 of Rainwater Harvesting for Drylands and Beyond are a must have for any newcomer or experienced person who wishes to harvest rainwater in multiple ways.The pages light up with the new full color graphics and photos. I especially appreciate the updates on real-life case studies, tracking the time-tested experience of Mr. Lancaster’s, and others, work. I have successfully utilized both volumes in learning the most effective ways of capturing rainwater, here in the Northwest where we have very dry summers.As our climate changes these volumes are an indispensable tool toward assisting the reader to more fully comprehend the cause and effect of harvesting water, the earth’s most valuable resource.As the title indicates the core of these books is harvesting rainwater, yet they are so much more. In Volume 1, Mr. Lancaster explains the basics of how to assess one’s water input potential and the actions needed to achieve this through integrated design on an individual or neighborhood scale. This enables the reader to understand the flow of water, calculate the amount of this flow and install plants that help with water absorption.As an instructor of whole systems landscape design, these books are extremely useful in sharing with my students. The quick reference guides provide the opportunity to gain a whole systems approach to water harvesting, as are the expanded tools and how-to information.In Volume 1, Mr. Maseko, the African farmer, so aptly stated: You’ve got to plant the water before you can plant the trees. Brad Lancaster’s book skillfully offers us the tools in how to effectively plant water.Jude Hobbs is an internationally recognized permaculturist with 35 years’ experience in the design and teaching fields.