You can create lush native landscaping without depending on groundwater for irrigation by practicing rainwater harvesting techniques.
Rainwater harvesting is the process of capturing or slowing down stormwater from a surface and putting it to beneficial use, such as watering shade trees, plantings or a garden. Rainwater can be directed by gutters and downspouts to cisterns to store water or more simply by creating depressions and/or berms called "earthworks" where vegetation will thrive.
As a Sonoran desert community, water conservation is a critical community ethic. Broad-based implementation of water harvesting could reduce municipal water demand by reducing the need for potable water for irrigation. It also prevents rainwater from running into the streets where it can pick up pollutants that are then transported into our washes. Broad-scale rainwater harvesting could result in decreased floodwaters and reduced erosion near culverts and other flood control devices in our drainageways.
With harvested rainwater, we can increase vegetation for beautification of landscaping and shading of heat islands, without drawing on our drinking water supplies. Plus, we can increase individual property values by meeting LEED green building requirements.
Tucson has aggressively embraced rainwater harvesting as a means to work within the water constraints of our natural habitat. Click here to view a timeline that shows activities since 1989 when Trees for Tucson planted its first 60 trees using rainwater harvesting principles. |