Water Harvesting: A Community Project

To gain another perspective of water harvesitng opportunities in Tucson, I found a volunteer opportunity through the Desert Museum. A few people from the Desert Museum were involved in a water harvesting project in a neighborhood in Tucson. They had identified different areas on the street where water tended to pool during storms and decided to build channels along the curb that they could drain the runoff into. They would do this by cutting out a section of the curb to allow the water from the street to flow into the channel. This would allow the water to infiltrate into the ground as well as provide water for plants along the channel. I thought this was a brilliant idea as it seemed fairly simple and would benefit the neighborhood as well as get the water off the streets.



Water harvesting channel to hold runoff from the road.

 I liked how this project was a community effort and located along the road rather than in someone's yard. There were many peopel walking and riding their bikes by who stopped to ask what we were doing. It seemed to be a great way to educate people in the neighborhood about water harvesting. The people involved in this project were also involved with an effort to establish bike lanes and plant trees in their community. There had been other water harvesting projects in the neighborhood as well.

Sonya, explaing to people passing by what we are doing.

The plan for this project was to dig a trench along the curb and line it with rocks. The land between the houses and the channel was graded gently to allow for the water to drain into the channel. Digging out the channel took the most effort because the soil was very compacted, but by the end it was about a 12-18 inches deep. Just as we had done at Leslie's house, we built shelves that stuck out into the channel for plants to grow on.





A shelf for plants to grow