Finally, after much waiting on transport, we have our concrete water tank. I was pleased to find one for sale close by but was dependant on availability of heavy machinery to get it moved. This will be setup to collect water from the roof of the house as a backup drinking supply.March 13, 2014rainwater
This excel file has multiple worksheets with numeric values and charts of sunshine hours, rainfall, monthly frost count and temperature for several South Island locations, including:
Westport
Nelson
Blenheim
Kaikoura
Christchurch
Data sourced from NIWA (http://www.niwascience.co.nz/edu/resources/climate).
Plan for dry and survive drought with carefully designed and implemented rainwater catchment systems built directly into the landscape. Three core elements to mitigating the effects and impact of drought:
Identify and intercept water flows to keep moisture on the landscape
Improve soils ability to absorb and retain water
Reduce the impact of hot, dry winds
Find out how simple land use patterns and strategic planting can achieve all these benefits and more.waterrainlandfarmservice
It's raining today (as they said it would) and it's bloody marvellous. As a free resource, rain should be collected or focussed for use in the right spots at the right time. One of my processes includes home made guttering, a bath, and an overflow pipeMarch 05, 2011rainwater
A swale is a permaculture technique designed to improve water catchment and retention on slopes. Applicable to varying scales, a swale is basically a ditch or terrace created along a contour line with the removed soil piled on the downhill side. As rainwater drains down the slope above is is caught and absorbed by the swale. Plantings made along the swale will have access to additional moisture for extended period.
My first attempt at a small swale follows the contour line on a northwest facing slope below an existing track. Because of the small size I was able to dig this by hand over 2 periods, using an A-frame level. Over the course of the next few months we will be scattering the kitchen scraps along the length for the chooks to work over, adding their manure and nutrients from the kitchen. Finally it will be planted up in a variety of different plants from ground covers, bulbs and shrubs to fruit and firewood trees.June 12, 2011swaleearthworksrain water
This chart shows annual rainfall by month for the years 1990 - 2014 (and partial 2015). While there is a definite tenancy for rain to occur in June and July there is also obvious bumps in October, March and April. Wider areas of colour represent times of high rainfall while narrow regions are dryer. It becomes clear that rainfall can occur at any time throughout the year and that dry years follow periods high rainfall. With this in mind it makes a lot of sense to be approaching water catchment and management with a multi year view of charging up soil moisture during wet times to carry us through periods of below average rainfall.
Climate change predicts a wetter future with more extreme rainfall events for much of New Zealand.
Trapping water in the landscape is a valuable technique for buffering rainfall to later irrigate downhill crops and trees.August 13, 2012climate changeducksrainswale
Finally, after discovering and experimenting with swales for some time, I have rerouted the rainwater from the house roof to a newly created TOP SWALE. The new excavations run in a fairly straight line through the orchard and overflow into the recently reconfigured garden swales.January 18, 2013rainwaterswale
The weather men predicted this one and issued dire warnings. We are well placed (elevated) to deal with torrential rainfall... just a bugger about the leak in the roof, I thought I'd fixed it.
