By Sharon Gibbons
In the Bay Area, we appreciate that rainwater and stormwater are precious resources to be harvested onsite in our gardens rather than letting it disappear down storm drains. Rainwater harvest and greywater recycling are helpful ways to protect our creeks, watersheds and our water supply. We can redesign our urban landscapes to capture and use these resources with rain gardens, sidewalk gardens, and bioswales. These features can transform and soften our hard urban environments, bringing more of nature into our cities and restore ecological function.
The Watershed Project is working with forward-thinking educators to build environmental curriculum around school gardens and water issues to educate for the future and help rethink our water use. We also assist schools with installation of rainwater systems, which can serve as educational tools and as demonstration projects for the community.
Rainwater harvest includes various approaches to capturing rainwater as part of our gardening and landscape designs. Creating a rain garden, as a garden feature, consists of a depressed or sunken area that rainfall will flow into from an impervious surface, such as a driveway or sidewalk, and slowly subside into the layers of soil, assisted by water-loving plants such as native rushes and sedges. Drought tolerant native plants are also a beautiful and hardy part of the design, creating habitats for insects, birds and animals. Rain gardens help to collect rainwater onsite, filter urban pollutants as the water soaks in, and helps to recharge the water table. Rainwater harvesting can also utilize catchment systems to capture rainfall from roofs to be stored and used to irrigate landscapes. Catchment systems can be as simple as rain barrels or can use larger cisterns and tanks.
Rainwater and stormwater can be captured from our streets and hard urban surfaces, such as parking lots, by using various strategies including permeable surfaces that allow water to penetrate and soak in, curb cuts that direct rapid water flow to sidewalk rain gardens, and bioswales , longer and more linear garden stretches that are designed to slow down and absorb urban runoff. Both rain gardens and swales have a sunken level that uses layers of sand and soil with appropriate plantings to move and soak up rainfall and stormwaters. Both rainwater and stormwater capture benefit our urban environments by slowing water and filtering out pollutants, and promoting resilient native gardens. These more urban water-use designs help protect our watersheds by helping to prevent flooding and high peak flows from storms that erode and cause damage to our creek habitats, and prevent pollutants from entering our waterways and the Bay.
In addition, using greywater recycling to irrigate landscape is another important source for water. By replacing our potable water with greywater from our laundry or showers to water our gardens, this system supports more sustainable water-use, promotes more shade-giving trees and plants to cool our homes, and more gardens. Both rainwater harvest and greywater reuse will help keep our gardens more resilient facing future droughts and the effects of climate change. These water-thoughtful approaches help reduce demands on our watershed and our water supply to strike a better balance with the needs of our natural world which relies on the same watersheds and the same water sources for a healthy environment.
The Watershed Project and our Public Programs Manager, Martha Berthelsen are excited to offer upcoming workshops for the public and educators addressing rainwater harvesting and greywater usage. To see more examples of water friendly urban landscaping and low-impact designs such as bioswales and rain gardens, visit the Richmond Greenway or come to our Second Saturday Greenway events. Email martha@thewatershedproject.org for more information.
Capture Your Rainwater and GreyWater Workshop
When: Saturday, September 24th, 2016, 10:00a.m.-1:00p.m.
Location: Richmond Convention Center
403 Civic Center Plaza, Catalina Room
Richmond, CA 94804
Cost: Free
Space is limited. Register online at EBMUD’s website.
Sponsored by EBMUD, in partnership with Greywater Action, The Urban Farmer Store, and the City of Richmond
West County DIGS Workshop Series:
Green Thumbs — Gardening Skills Made Easy: Rain Water Harvest with Martha Berthelsen
Open Only to West Contra Costa Educators
When: Tuesday, October 11th, 3:30 to 5:30pm
Sponsored by WCCUSD and West County DIGS (Developing Instructional Gardens in Schools)
Contact martha@thewatershedproject.org for more information.
San Francisco Watershed Teaching Tools Workshop:
Open only to San Francisco Unified Educators
When: Friday, Nov. 4, 2016, 9:00a.m. to 12:30p.m.
Sponsored by SFPUC and Tap the Sky
Contact martha@thewatershedproject.org for more information.
