Lancaster - Rainwater Harvesting for Drylands and Beyond, Volume 1: Guiding Principles to Welcome Rain Into Your Life and Landscape

Praise for

Rainwater Harvesting for Drylands and Beyond

Volume 1, 3rd Edition

Brad Lancaster has done it again. In revising his excellent book, he has given us a window into the world through the lens of water. Water connects all things. And Brad shows us water as a practical way of considering context and connection. From a world of water as commodity, he takes us to a world of water as moving, enriching exchanges, the stuff of life. A native friend got a job with his local water company, and rather than an engineering job, he saw it as a sacred trust. This is the shift that Brad leads us carefully through. Water is wealth and healthlets treat it that way, and dance our way from scarcity to abundance.

Joel Glanzberg, author of the The Permaculture Mind; tracker; and teacher / designer of regenerative living systems; PatternMind.org

In a time of escalating resource scarcity and global conflict, this essential book helps us regain control of our water by showing us how to enhance our water and energy supply with simple, fun, and effective strategies at home and beyond.

Maude Barlow, author of Blue Covenant; Senior Advisor on Water to the President of the United Nations General Assembly

Brad Lancaster clearly defines the differences between the path to scarcity and the path to abundance, both revolving around the wise use of water while avoiding the consequences of careless use. Throughout the book, alternatives are plainly described with illustrations that get to the point. I have worked in the field with Brad. He is unabashedly committed to the parallel causes of water and energy conservation. He asks incisive questions, searches for answers, tests solutions, documents findings, and happily shares his conclusions with all who care to listen. Clearly Mr. Lancaster is an agent for change, a true innovator, providing simple but powerful solutions to difficult questions facing society in both urban and rural situations.

Bill Zeedyk, Zeedyk Ecological Consulting, LLC; co-author of Let the Water Do the Work

Lancasters book on rainwater harvesting is fantastic and an abundant guidebook for a more sane approach to our most precious resource. I highly recommend it.

Jason F. McLennan, CEO, International Living Future Institute

This is one of those ideas that you just need to think about for a moment to understand its importanceand here we have all the techniques youll ever need patiently laid out!

Bill McKibben, fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences; author Eaarth: Making a Life on a Tough New Planet and Oil and Honey

A very good book gets even better. The case studies inspire, and the advice is detailed. This book is not just for people in arid lands; rainwater harvesting provides free delivery of clean water, reduces flooding, and improves stormwater quality in wetter lands too. Homeowners, renters, builders, students, planners, and policy makersread this book!

David Bainbridge, co-author of Passive Solar Architecture;
author of A Guide for Desert and Dryland Restoration: New Hope for Arid Lands; http://works.bepress.com/david_a_bainbridge/

This book is a must read for all of us who care about water. The personal, heartfelt stories of Brads own processes and successes motivate us to try, while the clear connections he makes to the global environmental crisis we face deepens the importance of this work.

Laura Allen, founding member of Greywater Action; GreywaterAction.org

Its said that water is the crisis du jour of the early 21st century as energy was of the late 20th century.

This is true but more importantly the two are intimately related. 20% of our energy use is for pumping water and large percentage of our energy production is based on hydropower much of which is wasted for air conditioning that could be accomplished by proper shading and natural ventilation.

Appropriate technology (finding the right scale to apply technology and design) is the key to addressing this situation and no one does this better than Brad Lancaster. Brad shows how to passively harvest sun, shade, and water using appropriate design principles available to us all.

Ken Haggard, architect, San Luis Sustainability Group; co-author of Passive Solar Architecture; ISES Passive Solar Architecture Pocket Reference; author of Fractal Architecture

I listen to the music of the water flowing in the river, and I wonder. Will this beautiful melody remain forever? Brad Lancaster gives me the answer: YES, if we act now, making the connection between water and life, living cisterns of vegetation and a better climate, and rainwater harvesting and energy saving (reducing toxic emissions). This book is an indispensable tool for all of those who want to minimize their footprint and contribute to greening the planet, especially for those, like me, who live in the Drylands. We all should read it!

Alejandra Caballero, Director of Proyecto San Isidro,
a Mexican Training Center in Land Restoration and Sustainable Living; ProyectoSanIsidro.com.mx

Brad Lancaster offers simple, time-tested solutions to making better use of the water falling on properties. The tools and strategies presented have the potential to help homeowners replace nearly all their landscape water use with water derived from on-site sources: rainwater, stormwater runoff, and greywater.

Water Engineering Australia

Water running off our gardens, streets and farmland is the #1 source of ocean pollutionand ocean users and precious marine life suffer. Meanwhile, many regions lack clean drinking water. Plus, transporting and cleaning water is energy-intensive, contributing to climate change. But we can sponge up that runoff in soilnaturally watering plants, filtering pollutants and recharging groundwater. Brads methods to do this apply everywhere along the coast. Put them to use on your site, step-by-step. Not a DIY type? Show the book to your landscaper. And share it with your city and water district to spread the knowledge.

Paul Herzog, Ocean Friendly Gardens Program Coordinator, Surfrider Foundation; OceanFriendlyGarden.org

Awards

Rainwater Harvesting for Drylands and Beyond, Volume 1 awarded:

Best Indie Books of the Year pick by Kirkus Reviews

Southwest Books of the Year pick by the Pima County Public Library

Finalist Foreword Magazines Book of the Year

Silver Award, Nautilus Book Awards

Bronze Medal, Living Now Book Awards

Finalist, Eric Hoffer Book Award

Best Book Award by USA Book News National Book Awards

See HarvestingRainwater.com for more testimonials and book reviews

Rainwater Harvesting
for Drylands and Beyond

Volume 1

Third Edition

GUIDING PRINCIPLES TO WELCOME RAIN
INTO YOUR LIFE AND LANDSCAPE

Brad Lancaster

Illustrated by
Joe Marshall
Silvia Rayces
Ann Audrey
Roxanne Swentzell
Gavin Troy
Kay Sather
Jill Lorenzini
Carol Heffern

Tucson, Arizona
HarvestingRainwater.com

Copyright 2006, 2008, 2010, 2013, 2014, 2017, 2019
by Brad Lancaster. All rights reserved.

Published by:
Rainsource Press
813 N. 9th Ave.
Tucson, AZ 85705
U.S.A.
HarvestingRainwater.com

First Printing, 1st Edition 2006
Second Printing, 1st Edition 2006; Third Printing, 1st Edition 2008,