Our irrigation Doctor requests a project term report about : WATER CONSERVATION.. help?

Question

i will be greatful if somebody helped me with PDF, PPT or Word document of similar term project with table of contents an summary and refrences.

Answer 1

Here's a link to Geoff Lawton's upcoming documentary movie on how to save water through Permaculture.

Geoff if the man who taught _me_ my Permaculture Design Certificate course at the Permaculture institute when it was at Tyalgum (near Murwillumbah), NSW.

http://www.permaculture.org.au/harvestin...

Geoff is a direct student of Bill Mollison, the man who founded   the Permaculture movement. Geoff has done some amazing projects around the world helping people grow their own food in some of the most difficult and hostile places. There is a flash movie about one of them, based in Palestine.

See: http://www.abc.net.au/backyard/flash/Per...

Answer 2

Water Conservation: Every Drop Counts

Water is a precious resource in our environment. Growing populations and ongoing droughts are squeezing our water resources dry, causing natural habitat degradation and impacting our everyday use of water.

We have no choice but to pay more attention to how we are using water, and how we may be wasting it. We must bridge the gap between our understanding of how important water is to our survival and what we can do to ensure that we have an adequate supply of clean water for years to come.

Below is Handy’s list of the many simple ways you can take action and conserve water, both inside and outside our homes.

You’re In Control

Try to do one thing each day to save water. Don’t worry if the savings are minimal. Every drop counts, and every person can make a difference.

Be aware of and follow all water conservation and water shortage rules and restrictions that may be in effect in your area.

Make sure your children are aware of the need to conserve water.

Answer 3

WATERSHORTAGE

we should not only conserve water ,we should also collect it when it rains ,make your lawn and garden receptive to absorb water ,and not let it run off onto the street.

And cars can be washed with rain water ,it does not have to be drinking water.

Here is the whole story on the best way to conserve and harvest water and why

The summary for the garden is mulching and lowering the flower beds

having the paths high so that they form basins that absorb the water .

read on

PERMACULTURE ANSWER ON WATER HARVESTING AND CONSERVATION

WHY SHOULD WE HARVEST WATER

because there is so little that we can use

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25% of the planets surface is land

75%of the surface is water and it is rising

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97%of the Earths water is salt

fresh water is only 3% of all the Earths water

most of it is beyond out reach

now much ice is melting and running into the seas fresh water lost for ever.

STORAGE or Location of % of the fresh water

ice and glaziers 74%

groundwater 800 meters + 13.5 %

groundwater less than 800meters 11.o%

Lakes 0.3%

soils 0.006%

Atmospheric in circulation 0.0035%

rivers 0.03%

frozen land or permafrost is not included and represent an unavailable storage of 40%

so of the 3% about 11.6 ,is easily available to us ,in rivers, lakes and ground water surface aquifers,more and more of this is becoming contaminated

overpopulation of an extra 70 million people a year (increasing all the time )and expanding agriculture ,which uses 70% of available potable water supplies ,has brought the good(sweet) water supplies to critical levels ,some countries have been in trouble already quite a while .

Now climate change and desertification, because of irresponsible agriculture ,overgrazing and deforestation is damaging world fresh water production .

It is a good reason for concern and if we do not rectify matters by changing agricultural methods ,reforest ,stop deforestation,become more economic with water use ,stop producing more people ,stop wasting and contaminating water, we will be in serious trouble all round

and could end up looking like Mars

And these are some of the things we can do

tp conserve water use

EFFICIENT WATER USE

IN THE HOUSE

one can connect the sink straight to the toilet cistern and so use the water twice ,first to have a shave and then to flush the toilet

also if you bend the ball valve you can regulate the level of the cistern

Always have your Grey water and Black water separate,so that the sink and shower water goes directly into the garden saving on irrigation and at the same time ,making the sewage smaller and easier to deal with ,

This also goes and irrigates the garden but via a cistern of two compartments and a French drain ,on which you plant trees,

ON THE LAND

Economic systems of irrigation, like drip irrigation

and water harvesting design, using a lot of stone walls ,that condense water in the night

and planting leafy plants ,for the same purpose,

Building wind breaks ,to counter act the drying effects of the wind and farm towards Aggro forrestal ,using as many trees as possible to limit evaporation .

Using shade nets before we have tree cover

and use MULCH

By cutting down the weeds before they produce seeds and leave them where they fall.

They will cover the ground add even more organic matter on top,(you can use saw dust,leaves green or dry),

And when you plant make a little space and plant in the mulch.this is the easiest quickest and by far most beneficial way(for the quality of you soil)to prepare the land for planting.

To prevent weeds from coming all you have to do it turn out the lights,you can even use cardboard or black plastic(this is good for strawberries because they will rot if they touch humid ground,and the bugs can get to them).

Mulch is organic material green or dry that covers the ground,the thicker the better the composting process will turn it in to black topsoil

The humidity is preserved underneath and promotes the development of worms(there exists no better compost than their excrements)and a variety of micro biotic life which together within the mulch produce more topsoil.

The mulch also keeps the ground temperature even and guards against the impact of the rain ,which would other wise brings salt to the surface if on unprotected land.

Mulch also prevents the soil from drying out because of the sun and,wind erosion.

WATER HARVESTING

As far as catching rain is concerned ,we do this all the time ,and have done so already since Babylonian times,and is a part of the more advanced Agriculture,that existed with the Egyptians,,Moors, Arabs and probably many more

Central ,and South American indigenous people had this idea coupled to their pyramids ,catching the water of the slopes and leading it into tanks or onto the fields .

And many others ,today we call this WATER HARVESTING.

Only Modern Man is totally extravagant with the rain water given ,and complains of the wetness ,letting it run off into the rivers lost forever ,With out even attempting to hold on to it .

And then later complains of not having water ,when times are dryer

In Permaculture the rule is to harvest water to the point of Zero runoff.

This means that all of the rain that falls on an area is absorbed by the terrain and not a drop leaves it.

By building dams,ponds or Swales, with inter connecting ditches,

If there are enough of these ;the places ,where before ,the rain water ran over the ground into the rivers and on to the sea ,in a matter of hours or days.

It now runs into absorbent dams or Swales and saturates the ground and eventually reaches subterranean water deposits ,taking many months to do so.

Or it fills up ponds that can be used for Aquaculture.

And so a convex situation that repels water is transformed in a concave ,absorbent one and turning the area in to a sponge.

In Spain and Portugal ,which still display many examples of the conquering Moorish influence one can find many remnants of Water harvesting,such as Aqueducts and tanks underneath the patios ,which collect the rain water from the roofs ,to be used in dryer times.

In Arabia ,on a large scale ,land has been shaped to catch and lead,rain water into sandy areas or to agricultural lands.sand is almost as good as dams because it absorbs water and holds it.

Here in Mexico we collect the rainwater in our school for sustainable agriculture,but it is too near Acapulco to trust the rain water for drinking ,and this holds true for most places ,so we use it for irrigation.

the rain water from a gutter runs via a filter into a tank.

In Europe in my parents house ,when i was young ,we had a rain barrel,where the water from the gutter ended up .

this was usual in those days ,but i have seen few in modern times.

We can use this action also in other ways ,

for example the roof water via a ditch can run trough the chicken house ,cleaning it and end up fertilizing the vegetable plot(this is called the creation of energy flow.

this water used to be Ok in times gone by before Air pollution ,

Today i would recommend it only for washing and irrigation

SWALES

On slopes we plow contours very slightly declining ,you have to do it with a level just enough to drain ,

At the end you have a wide part and a little bit deeper ,this is the swale

the rain water runs down the slopes along the contour in to the swale

and slowly drains into the ground .

this feeds the underground water supplies after it has saturated the ground above ,

after a series of these ,on the bottom you could have a well or a pump and pump the collected underground water up again.

Water over the ground takes minutes to move along and usually into ditches ,into creeks or rivers

But by redirecting it into the ground it takes months

in Dry parts of the country you can ensure growth by many months if you do this because of the wet ground .

Sand underneath works almost the same as a pond ,sand absorbs and hold water ,so failing a dam you direct water in to sandy dips and can also have a pump on the low end .

dry ponds are holes that fill up with water during the rain,but they are sandy or at least leaky ,do not hold the water for long ,usually only a few days ,or if there is clay underneath in patches, maybe a week .

But as mentioned above this water is not lost ,it is only out of sight ,and is stored in the ground .

just check after a heavy rain ,only the top few inches of the ground is wet ,because the water moves to fast ,

So to not waste the rain water ,we direct it into the ground .

I made one garden ,in Africa in front of a huge mountain wall ,this in itself collected tons of water during the rains ,by digging a ditch in front of the mountain ,

I controlled the water leading into various ditches going down hill(never straight ,so as not to have to much erosion,into many holes ,with over flows continuing in ditches to the next hole ,(the holes varying from a few square meters,

and then into level deep ditches .closed at intervals ,with an over flow ,using a pipe into the next one ,and so on.

About 5 large ditches in all ,the last one almost never got water ,

all of it had gone into the ground by then ,and in any case at the end was a water retaining dam.

the rain falls in this part of Africa are enormous and can wash away roads in hours ,or flood fields .

this never happened in my big water system spanning a few acres which was the vegetable gardens

The fact that not a drop of all this water left the garden ,is called zero run off ,which is the rule of the principle of water harvesting in PERMACULTURE

LINKS ON PERMACULTURE

http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index;...

check my 360 for more questions on Permaculture under starred questionshttp://360.yahoo.com/profile-XWsshpgjeb....