Customer Reviews

Rainwater Harvesting for Drylands and Beyond (Vol. 2): Water-Harvesting Earthworks

5 star:		(11)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

This book deserves to be widely read, not just for people in the desert. I live in a region that gets nearly 45" of rainfall per year, and I can't wait to apply some of what I've learned from this great "how to" manual. Fresh water is a vanishing resource on our planet, and when we send it all down the storm drains, it makes its way from storm drain to stream to river to ocean: gone. To keep from draining our aquifers, we need to capture that water in our landscape, so it can percolate back into the earth, or be used by our plants.

My first project will be to divert some of the runoff from our blacktop driveway into an "infiltration basin", where it can be used by my trees and shrubs, and soak into the earth. "Rainwater Harvesting for Drylands and Beyond, Volume 2" shows you how to do this, step by step, and also tells you how to build the simple but effective specialized tools you'll need (such as a "bunyip water level", so you know BEFORE a washout rainstorm where the water will flow).

Other topics include systems of berms and basins; terraces; diversion swales; check basins; and french drains. There are many helpful drawings throughout (whimsical but clear!).

If you're interested in water conservation, this book is for you. It's a tour-de-force on the subject of capturing and using rainwater and runoff in the landscape.

I bought the two editions for this book, but I find the most of the first one in the second, so its not necessary to buy the two volumes.

Here is a book full of inspiring stories and painstaking details about how to catch and use the thousands of gallons of water we have each been utterly wasting every time it rains. It is both a call to action and a detailed instruction manual, and in each category it is clearly written and compelling.

Being a fairly right-brained person, the stories from around the world about individuals and communities organizing to harvest rainwater and vastly improve their lives appealed to me the most. Descriptions of standing in the rain and watching the flow of water on your property made complete sense to me. I truly believe that you can read this book and intuit how to alter your landscape to harvest water and grow amazing plants without understanding the engineering behind it all.

On the other hand, if you are a left-brained, engineer-type, you too will love this book. It is extraordinarily well organized and includes everything you need to know to create small and large water-harvesting systems. There are pages of equations; there are lists and very clear descriptions of every tool you will need for every project. While none of this made any sense to me, I can see that it would be enormously helpful to many others.

Whether you live in the desert Southwest US or a rainforest, fresh water is becoming more scarce every day. This excellent book will help you harvest and husband this precious resource.

What a fantastic book it is just what I was looking for. I live in the rainy northwest, but in the Summertime many of my plants dry out because I get so busy with other things that I don't have time to water them. I am looking forward to implementing some of the great ideas found in this book. Hopefully my plants will be looking a little greener this summer!

I think that Vol. 2 covers a lot of territory. I was mostly interested in making my own earthworks to harvest rainwater on my lot. There were many options based on slope, function etc. A great deal of information is provided on projects around the world, agricultural issues and gray water harvesting. For me this more specialized information was not necessary. I just wanted to build my own earthen harvesting berms and basins. The perfect audience for this book as is would be people doing low cost agriculture projects in second and third world countries. I still found the book very useful and put many ideas into action on my own.

An extraordinary book! Gobs of drawings and pictures, interesting stories along with technical details, easy-to-understand guidelines, extensive resource list. It has it all. For anyone attempting water harvesting, I give this book the highest recommendation.

I teach water harvesting and watershed restoration at a local college, and this book, along with volume 1, is my primary resource when it comes to water storage in the soil. Absolutely a must for anyone seeking to make full use of the water that falls on their land.

Very timely and easy to understand - should be reading at schools and universities. simple and smart wys to solve the water problem in many parts of the world.

I bought this book both as a gift for my boss and for myself. I had heard the author on a local radio show and was excited by his ideas, particularly how to manipulate the earth to catch rainwater. I bought Volume 1, not knowing there was a Volume 2 & 3.

Frankly, I found the book to be schizophrenic in its lay out and content. It doesn't flow well and is not a book you can sit down to relax with for an easy read. Also many of the book's catch phrases aren't defined such as "earthworks". What the heck are earthworks? This phrase isn't in the book's glossary or in Webster's dictionary. I think many of the catch phrases are terms taken from other books/sources --i.e. "solar arc". This book would be better served not to use these terms or to define them more clearly.

Finally, Volume 1 is packed full of photos and diagrams, and what I think may be good ideas but I can't get to them because the book is too difficult to read. Volume 1 frequently gives you the "what" but the tranmission to "how" is like a cell phone cutting out. I'm not willing to pay more money for Volumes 2 & 3 if they are laid out in the same manner.

I'm disappointed.

Brad has done it again. He is so incredibly knowledgeable about his topic that there is not another book (other than his other books) that you would need to understand water harvesting. Also, if you ever have a chance to hear his talk on water-harvesting, be sure to go. It is entertaining and very informative.