Watershed in garden.

The Watershed

By David Bonn, Managing Member
WaterShed Designs LLC

Building urban-friendly gardens that are totally dependent on municipal tap water just doesn’t make sense. In light of the situation, the WaterShed team took a fresh look at harvesting rainfall. The result is a wealth of knowledge and the WaterShed freestanding rainwater harvester. The WaterShed employs simple technology to harvest, store and distribute substantial quantities of high-quality water to support urban-friendly agriculture. Just add rain.

What is a Watershed?

The WaterShed is a freestanding structure that harvests, stores and distributes significant quantities of high-quality water to irrigate urban-friendly gardens.

Freestanding Rainwater Harvesters come in four sizes from 6′ x 8′ to 12′ x 16′, and harvest from 1,000 to 7,000 gallons of rainwater. WaterSheds do not require building permits (in Oregon), as long as the local zoning and set-back requirements are met.

WaterShed products are built to code (ORSC) and built to last, and will perform for many years with very little maintenance.

See more about the Wastershed here.

The Wealth of Waste – The economics of wastewater use in agriculture

Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations
Rome, 2010

Excerpt:

6 September 2010, Stockholm/Rome – Recycling urban wastewater and using it to grow food crops can help mitigate water scarcity problems and reduce water pollution, but the practice is not being as widely implemented as it should, according to a new FAO report.

Use of reclaimed wastewater in agriculture has been reported in around 50 countries on what amounts to 10 percent of the world’s irrigated land, according to “The Wealth of Waste: The Economics of Wastewater Use in Agriculture,” published today at the start of World Water Week (Stockholm, 5-11 September).

While on a global scale only a small proportion of treated wastewater is used for agriculture, the practice is winning increased attention worldwide and in a few countries — Spain and Mexico, for example — a high proportion of reclaimed water is used in irrigation.

“The case studies in this report show that safely harnessing wastewater for food production can offer a way to mitigate competition between cities and agriculture for water in regions of growing water scarcity,” said Pasquale Steduto, Deputy Director of FAO’s Land and Water Division. “In the right settings, it can also help to deal with urban wastewater effluent and downstream pollution.”

Farmers would also be able to avoid some of the costs of pumping groundwater, while the presence of nutrients in the wastewater would reduce their fertilizer expenses.

“Properly treated and safely recycled water can potentially offer a ‘triple dividend’ to urban users, farmers and the environment,” said Steduto.

Read the complete article here.

See the FAO report:

Contents

Part I [827kb]

Acknowledgments
Summary
List of Acronyms

1. Introduction to wastewater reuse

Part II [525kb]

2. A regional perspective: introduction to the case studies from Spain & Mexico
3. An economic methodology for assessing the feasibility of using recycled water in agriculture

Appendix to Chapter 3: Further guidance on the methodology of cost-benefit and cost-effectiveness analysis relevant to the economic appraisal of wastewater reuse projects.

Part III [612kb]

4. Results and conclusions from case study analyses
5. A planning framework for wastewater reuse
6. Conclusions

References
ANNEX
OFFICIAL DOUCMENTS RELEVANT TO MEXICO CASE STUDIES

Uniting a community in Northeast Baltimore through gardening

Hamilton Crop Circle is seeking seed money to help our various projects grow!

Some money will be allocated to developing worm composting systems other funds will be allocated to building greenhouses for year round produce production. Our projects will become sustainable economic engines thanks to start up funds.

Local Composting Program:
Hamilton Crop Circle works with area restaurants to collect compostable materials at no charge, reducing waste, while creating natural fertilizer.

Roof Top Gardening:
HCC is developing a system of rooftop gardening projects in the industrial and mercantile sectors throughout Baltimore City to produce locally grown food.

Feeding the hungry:
Recognizing the need to provide fresh food to Baltimore’s needy HCC has forged a partnership between Our Daily Bread and the Baltimore Farmers Market to donate fresh foods weekly.

Educational Growth:
By developing microfarms at area schools, HCC is educating young people about where food comes from, and how to grow it. The gardens are ideally watered by the school’s rooftop cistern. The vegetables find their way to the cafeteria and the science room.

See their blog here.

The RUAF’s Urban Agriculture Magazine 20 is out. “Water for Urban Agriculture”

• Sustainable Use of Water in Urban Agriculture
• Using Treated Domestic Wastewater for Urban Agriculture and Green Areas; The case of Lima
• The Use of Reservoirs to Improve the Quality of Urban Irrigation Water
• Adapting to Water Scarcity: Improving water sources and use in urban agriculture in Beijing
• Improving Decision-making on Interventions in the Urban Water Systems of Accra

Read the complete issue online here.

Published in Malaria Journal, 4 August 2008
By Eveline Klinkenberg, PJ McCall, Michael D Wilson, Felix P Amerasinghe and Martin J Donnelly

To investigate the impact of urban agriculture on malaria transmission risk in urban Accra larval and adult stage mosquito surveys, were performed.

There has been a resurgence of interest in the problem of urban malaria in sub-Saharan Africa in recent years. Urban malaria is likely to increase in importance as rapid urbanization will result in the majority of Africa’s population living in cities in the near future. It is commonly assumed that urbanization leads to a decrease in malaria prevalence because it results in fewer Anopheles breeding sites, reduced biting rates due to the higher ratio of humans to mosquitoes, better access to treatment and better (mosquito-proof) housing.

However, there is a concern that areas with rapid, unplanned urbanization, typically associated with low income, poor education, poor health care and poor housing/sanitation, may not experience such marked decreases in malaria transmission.

Urban malaria epidemiology will pose different challenges to those in rural areas. One concern is that urban agriculture, promoted to increase food security and alleviate poverty might, especially when irrigated, increase the urban malaria risk by creating breeding sites for the Anopheles vector. Several studies have recorded breeding of Anopheles in urban agricultural sites, but few studies have investigated the impact of urban agriculture on entomological and epidemiological indicators. In urban Bouaké, Côte d’Ivoire, higher vector densities were found in rice growing areas than market garden areas, although sporozoite infection rates were lower and the impact on malaria epidemiology was not quantified.

Robert et al suggested that the market garden wells in urban Dakar, Senegal, might not be the most important mosquito breeding grounds as the presence of larvae in the wells did not coincide with the vector density peaks. Matthys et al found that urban farming created additional breeding sites for anophelines in the city environment and that malaria risk was affected by the type of farming present. However, in a recent study in two cities in Kenya, Keating et al found no association between household level farming and vector breeding sites. Entomological studies in Kumasi, Ghana, found higher Anopheles biting rates and significantly more reported malaria cases in urban areas with agriculture compared to urban areas without agriculture, though later epidemiological studies indicated that living near urban agriculture was not associated with malaria parasitaemia in young children in Kumasi.

Read the complete paper here in the Malaria Journal.

“During summer one Melbourne gardener, Marika Wagner, was struggling to look after her vegie patch under the somewhat arbitrary water restriction regime in Victoria – two watering windows a week is simply not enough to keep vegetables alive during a Melbourne summer!

“Like many others Marika rents her inner suburban home. For such people, those on a low income or for those who have a community garden plot, it is particularly difficult to grow vegies during summer.  For them systems such as water tanks are either out of reach financially or not worthwhile installing in a temporary situation.

“Marika decided that some concessions, such as use of buckets on non-specified watering days, were necessary for vegetable growing and so she decided to do something about it. Her efforts involved collecting and presenting over 3,000 signatures on a petition to the Victorian State Government, while gathering a wide range of gardeners and horticulturalists to find solutions for gardeners.”

Link to Food Gardeners Alliance website here.

Tasha talks to Mike about natural lawn care at City Farmer. A push mower makes no noise, uses no gasoline and does not pollute the atmosphere. See what else you can do to become a green ‘Lawnranger’.

Visitors learn about alternatives to lawns at the Vancouver Compost Demonstration Garden. How about a waterwise native plant garden or replacing your lawn with a variety of classy ground covers?

Rain Barrels and Soaker Hoses on Breakfast TV

Sharon tells Tasha how we use our rain barrel and also how we irrigate the Vancouver Compost Demonstration Garden — with soaker hoses. It rains a lot in Vancouver through much of the year, but sometimes we have drought conditions during the summer months and residents are eager to conserve water during those times.

Interview with Jennifer Bailey, City of Vancouver, Water Conservation Program Manager.

From: ‘Ideas that will catch on here.’
July 12, 2008, BBC

“Another fantastic idea I picked up – which could make its way onto my allotment before long – is the keyhole veg bed. This is a raised bed with bells on: it’s about 1m (3’6″) high, and the outer bed, where the vegetables are growing, slopes down from a central hollow column. There’s an access path to the column (giving the bed a “keyhole” shape viewed from above) and inside it is what amounts to a compost bin, held in with hessian: you fill it with kitchen waste, stable manure, grass clippings – whatever you’d put on your compost heap.

Then tip on water saved from your washing up, and that’s it. “The idea is that the water will drain through and take all the nutrients with it,” explains Kirstine. “It’s feeding from below the topsoil, so rather than watering on the surface and all the water evaporating, everything’s coming up from underneath.” In Africa, this garden will feed a family of six through the three-month dry period, when crops in the fields simply dry out.”

Keyhole Gardens at Send a Cow.

Below, a video titled: Lesotho – Make a Keyhole Garden

“A great little video made in Lesotho, showing how a group of schoolchildren made a keyhole garden. The charity Send a Cow showed them how to make it and the children can now make their own at home and have more food.”

Video: Rethinking Water: Greywater Guerillas Workshop

Petaluma home is first in the county (Sonoma) with a permitted system that uses old wash water for irrigation.

By COREY YOUNG
ARGUS-COURIER STAFF
May 8, 2008

When it goes online, the system should funnel 36,000 gallons of water a year into the back yard, Heckman said. The average four-person household in Petaluma uses more than 100,000 gallons of potable water a year, so the savings from a greywater system can be significant, he said.

Once cleaned, the water will be distributed to three locations in Heckman’s back yard, where the roots of berry bushes, shade trees and other plants will soak up it up. Heckman is growing pomegranates, blackberries, raspberries, edible flowers and more as part of a more sustainable lifestyle. “Tens of thousands of gallons of water, instead of going away, is being used to grow your food and shade your house,” Heckman said.

Link to article, “Going green with greywater”.