Rosella Waters Earthworks, Phase I, Part B
Biological Cleaning, Conservation, Dams, Demonstration Sites, Earth Banks, Education Centers, Food Forests, Gabions, Irrigation, Land, Limonia, Material, Natural Swimming, Plant Systems, Potable Water, Roads, Storm Water, Swales, Water Harvesting — by Kym Kruse
 The Mushroom Dam overlooking the beach area |
It’s taken a while to find the time to sit down and report on Part B of our earthworks here at Rosella Waters, near Cairns in far North Queensland. Phase I Part A was documented whilst the process was taking place. This latest update however will rely on memory and hurried notes made during the process, together with numerous photos. Large excavations such as the two large dams we constructed in part A are considerably easier to direct and far less time consuming than the finer detail work using smaller machinery as we experienced in putting in Part B.
Comments (0)Posted on: January 8, 2010
Keyline Design – Mark IV
Conservation, Dams, Earth Banks, Gabions, Land, Rehabilitation, Roads, Soil Erosion & Contamination, Surveying, Swales, Terraces, Water Harvesting — by Darren Doherty
‘Soil, Water & Carbon for Every Farm’ – Building Soils, Harvesting Rainwater, Storing Carbon
by Abe Collins & Darren Doherty
Introduction
Keyline Design was first developed by the great Australian, P.A. Yeomans (1904-1984), in the late 1940s & 50s initially as a practical response to the unpredictable rainfall regime he found on his new property, ‘Nevallan’, to the west of Sydney, New South Wales, Australia. Soil Conservation, as developed by the US Army Corp of Engineers was the predominant practice of the time and for a time Yeomans was influenced by this, though soon found some deficiencies with the pattern of water flow its application expressed. Yeomans went on to devote the rest of his life to the promotion, research and development of Keyline Design and in doing so was labelled by Permaculture co-originator Bill Mollison as "…one of Australia’s greatest patriots… ".
Influenced by the likes of prominent organic agriculture figures in Andre Voison, Friend Sykes, Newman Turner & Louis Bromfield (among many others!) Yeomans has been attributed with being the 1st person to accelerate soil formation through the stacking of methods, overturning the myth that it took 1,000 years to create an inch of topsoil. Yeomans proclaimed that "…the landman’s job is not so much to conserve soil as it is to develop soil, to improve his soil and to make it more fertile than it ever was…".
Comments (0)Posted on: March 16, 2009
Street Orchards for Community Security
Biological Cleaning, Community Projects, Conservation, Food Forests, Food Plants - Perennial, Land, Regional Water Cycle, Rehabilitation, Roads, Storm Water, Trees, Urban Projects, Village Development, Waste Systems & Recycling, Waste Water, Water Contamination, Water Harvesting — by Brad Lancaster
© Brad Lancaster, www.HarvestingRainwater.com
 Fig. 24.The heat island effect. An excessively wide, exposed, solar-oven-like residential street in Tucson, Arizona absorbs the sun’s heat during the day like a battery, then radiates it out at night. This local warming effect has raised summer temperatures in Tucson by 6°F (3°C) since the 1940s, which contributes to global warming since the higher temperatures result in people using air conditioners more, which are powered by electricity generated through the burning of coal. Note that no shade trees are planted in the public right-of-way along the street, leaving street and sidewalk baked. All runoff is drained off site leaving the development dehydrated. Reproduced with permission from “Rainwater Harvesting for Drylands and Beyond, Volume 1" |
My view of public streets was radically changed when I heard ecovillage designer Max Lindigger tell a story of an insightful walk he took with his grandfather. “Look there,” said his grandfather, pointing to condominiums being built on the once forested slopes above his village in the Swiss Alps. “That’s where we grew and gathered food during the war. The forests were common land, a reserve of community resources. What commons remain? Where will we grow and gather our food in the next catastrophe?”
I then looked at my Sonoran desert city of Tucson, Arizona and asked myself, “Where are my community’s forests, our commons? Where would we get our food in times of need?”
Comments (1)Posted on: January 19, 2009
The Muffin Tin and the Sponge
Biological Cleaning, Conservation, Regional Water Cycle, Roads, Storm Water, Swales, Waste Water, Water Harvesting — by Craig Mackintosh
Two simple ways of illustrating how to plant the rain
Brad Lancaster, author of the award-winning books “Rainwater Harvesting for Drylands and Beyond” and info-packed website www.HarvestingRainwater.com, demonstrates how we can get the most from the rain by planting it in the soil, then accessing it with living pumps of plants. These are simple concepts that help turn scarcity into abundance.
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