For farming in semi-arid areas, areas where rainfall is intermittent & not predictable consider larger-scale cisterns made from road-building ballast rock 40% voids for capacity of the cistern. Waterproofing using clays with sand aggregate to gravels and capped with clays & all if if done properly can be under crops using a mix of Inca terracing for runoff control & pre-Inca irrigation methods. Thus my offering, concepts, strategies based on common construction materials & methods that fundamentally sustain a modern lifestyle w/o heating the planet so follow heat-transfer the rule. For this idea with a combined terracing of the dirt from the cistern above it as catchment with drip-irrigation this stores an acre-foot of water on a 1/2-acre of land. Consider that, have many details to share.
Published by Tom Mallard, Living Systems, Industrial-Architectural Design
Waterproofing using clays with sand aggregate to gravels and capped with clays & all if if done properly can be under crops using a mix of Inca terracing for runoff control & pre-Inca irrigation methods.
Thus my offering, concepts, strategies based on common construction materials & methods that fundamentally sustain a modern lifestyle w/o heating the planet so follow heat-transfer the rule.
For this idea with a combined terracing of the dirt from the cistern above it as catchment with drip-irrigation this stores an acre-foot of water on a 1/2-acre of land.
Consider that, have many details to share.
2 Comments
Roberto, thanks for the interest, this is a visio of a 1-acre farm to scale has a garage the rest proposed farmhouse with the terrace plan, the cisterns below them & cross-section.
Terraces are 1m wide with 1/2m steps, facing tiles from hemp-mortar castings they transpire yet prevent fungal growth against them.
The terraces cover 1/2 acre, the cisterns shown in outline in the second url.
I tried to hype it up a bit for investors re-reading it, yet to build one.
cheers,
tom
http://www.mallard-design.com/mdc2010/media/site-plot-v1-color.jpg
http://www.mallard-design.com/mdc2010/media/floorplan-5-24-siteplan.jpg
Adding in two more, one the origin of the wind-fence in Phoenix, the yard got 15-20 knot winds summer afternoon porch was 47C for weeks, they plant bermuda grass there, I dug down 50-75cm to pull out roots and found artifacts, the 1920 farmhouse built upon Hohokam canal supplied farmland the main canal 3-blocks away.
They abandoned their canals in a 32-year drought 1400's-ish, a dispersal is how people survive in bad times not a Pueblo dependent on a river with a very large population for the times. I pounded in trellis slats cut in half to save sunflower sprouts in a thunderstorm with hail & winds.
http://www.mallard-design.com/mdc2010/media/wind-fence-phoenix.jpg
That is how the Rapa Nui survived by rural dispersal, they stayed sustainable on a tiny island for a 1/2-century before contact by living dispersed upon the countryside not larger villages, no perennial streams, dry trades not a lot of rain and rats ate the palm seeds a KISS cause they at contact had surviving palms in an irrigated area with several dozen growing.
What did it was a world-class inventive Culture, so they created rock mulching to not let soil moisture evaporate in the tradewinds by busting rocks, it worked and took significant constant labor to create the areal extent of the work in that amount of time, constant labor.
Their populations didn't exceed 5,000 and they created more megalithic statues and moved them farther than anyone assumed possible using three ropes to "walk" them to their location.
We're clueless :) ... they did waterworks and parallel with the Andean concept used porosity and slowing flow, not damming it putting it into groundwater a strategy, groundwater systems don't evaporate and provide slow variation, they operate over time delaying a change, absorbing runoff, the Inca saved a sliding hill @45-degrees by terracing from the river up, not top down, they built irrigation canals on valley walls with porous rocks, being revived today seeing they water the valley most efficiently.
http://www.mallard-design.com/mdc2010/media/farm-windfence.jpg
I moved to Reno, NV, a higher altitude desert base 1200m/4000ft, arid dry side of the Sierra Nevada Range did a test plot with my trellis-slat wind-sun fence facing due south and volunteers began growing before 4-weeks by 6 it showed great results late fall zero rain.
Published by Tom Mallard, Living Systems, Industrial-Architectural Design
Hi Tom,
I am in Cyprus and we are certainly considered semi-arid heading toward arid.
I am fascinated by your reply and would like to understand more of the details. Would it be possible to share more info?
Best Regards,
Roberto
Published by Roberto Sciffo, Founding Partner - Manager of Research & Development at The Ecolife Element Ltd