One of 55 eco-friendly homes nestled amongst newly established gardens

An hour or so south of the Sri Lankan capital of Colombo is the fishing district of Kalutara. Although only one of many regions hit by the 2004 Tsunami, post-disaster relief efforts here were unique in that Sarvodaya determined to use the situation to create Sri Lanka’s first eco-village.

Designed with the technical advice and guidance of world renowned Australian permaculture experts Max Lindegger and Lloyd Williams, who are affiliated with Ecological Solutions Inc. and Global Eco-village Network (GEN), the village has become a model of sustainable development.

The Sri Lankan government allocated a parcel of land situated five kilometres inland for the purpose, and financing for construction came via Sarvodaya as well as the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee (AJJDC), the United Nations Environmental Program (UNEP) and the Asia Pacific Forum for Environment and Development (APFED). The combined gifts culminated in the construction of Lagoswatta – a model eco-village, situated on a gentle five acre slope bordered by rice fields, that is now home to 55 families from three villages in the area.

I was of course very keen to take a look, and so after winding our way from the coast, through small farmlets and a rather beautiful and shady rubber tree plantation, I arrived in Lagoswatta for a brief look.

Beginning in April 2005 and completed in 2006, an important aspect of of the work was the involvement of the intended residents in the construction process itself – providing an excellent opportunity to build a sense of ownership and self-determination for their future, whilst giving survivors a sense of purpose that helps them deal psychologically with trauma, loss of loved ones and their subsequent dramatic change in circumstances.

Each earth-brick home in Lagoswatta is virtually identical, measuring about 46 square metres (500 square feet) and consists of two bedrooms, a living room, kitchen and sanitation facilities. Each home has its own garden, and practical involvement of residents are positively encouraged with training in composting, gardening, recycling and also maintenance of the solar panel and battery that provides electricity to each home – something many residents never had before. Homes are also equipped with a recycling receptacle and on the edge of the village is a small recycling station where materials are separated and stored for monthly collection. The project also included a Subterra biological soakage system for household greywater.

Water for drinking and irrigation is one of the biggest problems Sri Lankans face. Construction for Lagoswatta thus included fourteen rainwater harvesting tanks to collect roof run-off, five drinking wells and two communal bathing wells.

An important aspect of design for any eco-village are those that encourage community interdependence. In addition to housing, a multi-purpose community center was built that includes a doctor’s office (manned on Mondays), library, computer room, a childcare/Montessori school centre and a playground – all encouraging community interaction and the pooling and development of the creative abilities of individual villagers. Programs assisting in social mobilization and livelihood support foster this development as well.

A boy plays in the community childcare centre

The edge-of-town recycling station – emptied monthly

One aspect of village life I found interesting was that, unlike other Sarvodaya villages, where the very first stage of development is ‘awakening’ to the Sarvodaya principles based on earth care and the ten basic needs, the villagers of Lagoswatta were somewhat thrown together suddenly at a time of extreme stress. Additionally, many of the villagers were previously fisher folk, so once moved from the coast to Lagoswatta they’ve had to take on a whole new existence. Whilst villagers on the whole largely seemed content and adapting to their new surrounds, it was clear to me there wasn’t the same industriousness and cohesion found in some of the other villages who had opted to join the Sarvodaya network out of acknowledgement and appreciation over time of the principles that forms the basis of the movement.

In other words, these people were somewhat thrown together out of necessity, rather than inspired choice.

A Lagoswatta villager harvests compost from his bin

Practical examples of this could be seen by observing the state of different gardens in the village, where some were making excellent use of their land – cultivating quite a diverse range of fruit, vegetables and herbs and developing a lovely shaded environment that is a major advantage in the tropical heat – while others were making merely token efforts.

Some villagers were making excellent use of their garden space

I spoke with a few villagers about how well their solar system worked. One man spoke despondently about how after only four years the battery had already failed and he couldn’t afford the 15,000 rupees to replace it. Considering this man didn’t have power in the shack he and his small family lived in prior to its destruction, I was conscious of how this ‘upgrade’ in their life was making them dependent on polluting technologies that were too expensive for them to maintain. When I mentioned the failed battery in a neighbour’s house, it was explained to me that the first man had not been maintaining the battery as he was told (topping up with water) and so killed it from neglect. Considering this, I remembered that that particular man’s garden was also largely non-existent, indicating either a general lack of pro-active interest or difficulty in adapting, and it made me appreciate all the more the importance of Sarvodaya’s stepped program that prioritises individual transformation at its base.

Each home has a battery that stores power from a small roof-mounted
solar panel. The only appliances for most houses are normally only lights,

a radio and/or television.

As they say, a house does not a home make. In the same way, a collection of buildings and people does not an eco-village make. It became obvious to me that you cannot just lump a divergent range of people together and call them a ‘community’. A truly successful community requires some planning at a spiritual level to facilitate cohesion – and this centres in all involved being inspired with a sense of positive purpose and collectively shared goals. Disasters like that which gave birth to Lagoswatta obviously do not provide the luxury of time for such considerations, but I think this is an important facet to consider wherever possible.

Villagers said their conditions were improved – homes were warmer in winter,
cooler in summer, and power, water and garden features were all appreciated.

The good news is that Sarvodaya’s efforts in this regard continue to this day, and Lagoswatta has become an excellent model for not only Sri Lanka but also for village development and disaster relief efforts worldwide.

Stay tuned for the next edition in this series….

The community centre is appropriate for culture and climate

The community library was spartan, but it’s a start

Composting toilets are culturally unacceptable to Sri Lankans, so Lagoswatta
utilises septic tanks for black water. Outside are rain-fed washing facilities.

A typical Lagoswatta kitchen. Some homes house two or three families, as
families would open their doors to relatives struggling after the disaster.

A children’s park completes the picture. The sign reads:

"This park is a gift to the children from the American people."

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?”

Over 450 native food plants grow wild in the intact areas of the Sonoran Desert.1 The velvet mesquite tree is one of the keystone species producing a reliable crop of diabetes-deterring, naturally sweet, protein and carbohydrate—rich seeds and seedpods in both wet years and drought.2 Thus it used to be a staple of the indigenous people’s diets. Yet the vast majority of these trees and the greater ecosystem have been bulldozed within my city to be replaced with a hot and inhospitable pavement of impermeable streets, parking lots and buildings or landscapes of water-hungry exotic plants dependent upon irrigation from dwindling water supplies. The pavement drains much of our scant 12 inches (304 mm) of average annual rainfall out of the community through runoff and evaporation. Yet, this pavement is also the excessively long corridor through which most of our food arrives. According to the WorldWatch Institute, the average American meal travels 1,500 to 2,500 miles (2,414 to 4,023 km) from the farm to the table.3 If oil supplies fueling semi-trailers disappeared we’d be without food. If the power that fuels our well pumps went out, we’d be out of water. We are creating the conditions for catastrophe.

But that can change by turning “wastes” into resources, and turning challenges into opportunity. The majority of public land—our commons—in the urban setting is our public streets and adjoining right-of-ways. All too often there is little or no vegetation there, let alone a forest. But the resources (soil, local nursery and backyard grown native plants, rainwater runoff, and people) to grow a forest, or at least regionally appropriate orchards, are there (fig. 24 and 25).

Fig. 25. The cool island effect. A narrow, mature tree-lined, and shaded street in Village Homes, Davis, California. This local cooling effect from shading has resulted in summer temperatures dropping 10°F (5.5°C), which reduces global warming since lower temperatures result in people using air conditioners less, which are powered by electricity generated through the burning of coal. Note that runoff from the street is directed to the trees that shade the street; beneficially hydrating the site, while also reducing downstream flooding. The trees are deciduous, so they drop their leaves and let more sun in during winter. Reproduced with permission from “Rainwater Harvesting for Drylands and Beyond, Volume 1"

Once established, native food plants can survive on our natural rainfall patterns without irrigation. With harvested rainfall these plants can thrive. The vast majority of Tucson’s stormwater runoff is currently diverted straight from roofs, driveways, patios, parking lots, and convex landscapes to public streets that flood to resemble rivers; the runoff then exits via storm drains (fig. 26). If we recognize that runoff as an asset rather than a liability, we can harvest it before it runs down the drain to sustainably grow native food forests on public rights-of-way along the neighborhood streets that act like ephemerally flowing riverbeds, and within public parks and on private property (fig. 27). This also greatly reduces potential flooding of downstream areas, while improving stormwater quality.

Fig. 26. A landscape wastefully draining resources away. Reproduced with permission from “Rainwater Harvesting for Drylands and Beyond, Volume 1"

Fig. 27. A landscape abundantly harvesting resources. Reproduced with permission from “Rainwater Harvesting for Drylands and Beyond, Volume 1"

That’s a big part of the idea behind a collaborative effort in my hometown called Desert Harvesters, which strives to promote, celebrate, and enhance local food production and security by planting indigenous, food-bearing shade trees in water-harvesting earthworks, and then showing folks how to harvest and process the bounty. Annual events include neighborhood tree plantings, milling events that grind mesquite seedpods harvested from neighborhood trees into delicious flour, and native/local food feasts.

Planting community roots

We encourage neighborhood activists to organize tree plantings in their communities, emphasizing hardy, food-producing shade trees native to the Tucson Basin. We provide a list of the recommended trees, their description, and some of their uses on our website. These trees are the best for the area, since they have adapted over millennia to our local climate and soils, and coevolved with the native wildlife.

Neighbors can purchase these trees in 5-gallon sizes for just $8 each thanks to generous subsidies from Tucson Electric Power Company and the local program Trees for Tucson. A community tree-planting day is set for each neighborhood to distribute their trees, and it’s kicked off with a free workshop on how to plant them in water harvesting earthworks. Volunteer crews of neighborhood residents then set out to plant trees along their streets, sidewalks, and in private yards. Within hours of planting the neighborhood feels changed for the better-more neighbors know each other. The trees show the care and commitment people have for their community, and water-harvesting earthworks can be observed by all (fig. 28). Within six years of planting the trees are full and beautiful, regularly blooming with seasonal color. Neighborhoods find that as native habitat grows back within the urban core, exotic pigeon populations start to be replaced by native bird life such as cardinals, flycatchers, cactus wrens, hummingbirds, curve-billed thrashers, white-winged doves, gamble’s quail, and gila woodpeckers. The community’s Sense of Place becomes reconnected to the flora and fauna of the local ecosystem, which is becoming reestablished, right outside their homes. Within eight to ten years of planting, the tree-shaded sections of the neighborhood are noticeably cooler than unplanted areas (compare figs. 29 and 30). This confirms what studies have shown – shade trees growing along streets can cool the summer temperatures of urban neighborhoods by 10°F (5.5°C) if the canopy shades enough of the hardscape.4 This can greatly reduce a community’s power consumption since less power is then needed to mechanically cool buildings. Plant a tree and you plant a living air conditioner.

Fig. 28. Happy tree planters and newly planted desert ironwood tree. Neighbors help each other plant trees, and thereby get to know one another and create a more dynamic, close-knit community. Photo credit: Brad Lancaster

Fig. 30. Same section of Dunbar/Spring right-of-way as fig. 29 after water-harvesting earthworks and tree planting, 2006. Used with permission from “Rainwater Harvesting for Drylands and Beyond”

Additional indigenous food trees in the Tucson area include foothills palo verde (Cercidium microphyllum) and blue palo verde (Cercidium floridum) producing delicious flowers and barley flavored seeds, and desert ironwood (Olneya tesota) producing peanut-flavored seeds. Many native plants also have medicinal value and provide craft materials such as dyes, wood, glues, fiber, and more. Native food trees in other regions might include oak, pinyon pine, sugar maple, or date palm.

The harvest

Harvesting advice is given on our website, and harvesting workshops are given in areas of the community where the trees have been planted. The harvest extends well beyond the picking of fruit and seed. We also try to get folks to realize the value of harvesting the local resources that will support and enhance the trees – such as rainwater runoff and mulch. The implementation of rainwater-harvesting cisterns is encouraged to augment water-harvesting earthworks with captured roof runoff, and enhanced water-harvesting earthworks are utilized along streets to use street runoff to passively irrigate the trees planted along the streets. This simultaneously enhances local water resources while creating a beautiful, multi-purpose greenfrastucture of flood-controlling landscapes. For more information on these strategies please see my books “Rainwater Harvesting for Drylands and Beyond, Volumes 1 and 2” at www.HarvestingRainwater.com.

In addition to harvesting runoff, the basin-like earthworks passively harvest mulch in the form of leaf and fruit drop. The mulch increases the rate at which rainfall is absorbed into the soil, minimizes water loss to evaporation, and naturally fertilizes the soil. Rather than strip mining nutrients from the trees and soil by raking away fallen leaves and fruit drop (fig. 31), we encourage folks to let this organic matter collect within the basins around the trees to naturally decompose and cycle back into the vegetation and soil (fig. 32). Prunings are cut up into 4-inch (10-cm) long sections and laid beneath the trees from which they were cut. Harvest your leaf drop and prunings, and the nutrient loop becomes regenerative. Trees grow taller and stronger.

Fig. 31. Wastefully using fossil fuels to vacuum up leaf drop and nutrients. Photo credit: Jenny Leis

Fig. 32. Beneficially using prunings as mulch to recycle nutrients back into the soil and tree, while increase water infiltration into the soil, and reducing soil moisture loss to evaporation. Photo credit: Brad Lancaster

Milling and enjoying mesquite

We live in a society that is often short on time and in search of convenience. Traditional means of grinding mesquite pods and processing other wild foods often demand more time than busy folks are willing to give up. So we sought to speed up the process and make it fun. Thanks to a $4,900 PRO Neighborhoods grant we were able to purchase a farm-scale hammermill and mount it to a trailer to make it mobile. We take the mill to various public milling events around the community to which folks can conveniently bring their harvested mesquite pods (fig. 33). The hammermill can grind 5 gallons of whole mesquite pods into 1 gallon of finely textured, naturally sweet flour in just 5 minutes. Traditionally this would’ve taken hours (fig. 34).

Fig. 33. By taking our mill to various locations it is very easy for folks to get to the events by our favorite non-polluting, community-building, good health modes of transport – foot, rollerblade, skateboard, and bicycle. Photo credit: Brad Lancaster

Fig. 34. Primitive mesquite milling demonstration at the Dunbar/Spring Organic Community Garden mesquite milling and mesquite pancake breakfast.

The milling events are typically held in conjunction with local farmers’ markets or mesquite pancake feasts to enhance the diversity of available foods and to expose folks to the wonderful flavors and potential abundance of locally grown foods. The events are organized in October and November at community gardens, the community food bank, and community centers to correspond with the late summer garden harvest and the end of the mesquite pod harvest. Mesquite pancakes served with prickly pear and saguaro syrups or backyard honey “plant the seeds” of the native foods’ delicious tastes and potential within the minds and palates of the hungry public (fig. 35). (Click here for a video of one of the community fiestas). Sale of, and feasting on, local garden produce like corn, squash, tomatoes, and tepary beans, and cultural foods like tamales, sweet potato pie, and pickled cholla buds are encouraged. Local musicians play as folks eat and the hammermill is fired up to grind the mesquite pods brought by community members who harvested over the summer. Flour goes home with the harvesters, and mesquite breads, cookies, and sauces are cooked up in their kitchens.

Fig. 35. Hunger for the delicious mesquite pancake. Photo credit: Josh Schachter

By planting, harvesting, and sharing the produce of the native ecosystem and backyard gardens these foods become sustainable parts of our daily experience, community/cultural identity, and food security. Many of these plants, particularly the natives, do not need imported resources to grow. By incorporating such strategies as water harvesting, passive mulching, and strategic planting (such as along streets or on the east and west sides of buildings) local resources are enhanced, wildlife can prosper, neighborhoods are beautified, and communities are made more liveable. By sharing and celebrating community efforts and resources knowledge is spread, the value and appreciation of local resources grows, and community ties and investment build. All of this is an integrated means of designing to thwart catastrophe, while enhancing our lives now. And the benefits steadily grow both with the trees, the relationships we have initiated with our neighbors, and a deeper connection to place and the resources that sustain it.

Brad Lancaster is a permaculture teacher, designer, consultant, and activist living in Tucson, Arizona. He is a co-founder of Desert Harvesters (www.DesertHarvesters.org). In addition, he is the author of the award-winning books “Rainwater Harvesting for Drylands and Beyond” Volumes 1 and 2 (www.HarvestingRainwater.com).

The potential of harvested street runoff 5

For every inch of rainfall

• A 10-foot wide paved street will drain 27,800 gallons of runoff per mile
• A 20-foot wide paved street will drain 55,700 gallons of runoff per mile
• A 30-foot wide paved street will drain 83,500 gallons of runoff per mile

For every 100 mm of rainfall

• A 3-m wide paved street will drain 300,000 liters of runoff per mile
• A 6-m wide paved street will drain 600,000 liters of runoff per mile
• A 9-m wide paved street will drain 900,000 liters of runoff per mile

References:

1. Hodgson, Wendy, Food Plants of the Sonoran Desert, University of Arizona Press, 2001.
2. Niethammer, Carolyn J., The Tumbleweed Gourmet – Cooking with Wild Southwestern Plants, University of Arizona Press, 1987.
3. Halweil, Brian, Home Grown – The Case For Local Food in a Global Market, WorldWatch Paper 163, WorldWatch Institute, 2002.
4. Hammond, Johnathan, Marshall Hunt, Richard Cramer, and Lauren Neubauer, A Strategy for Energy Conservation – Proposed Energy Conservation and Solar Utilization Ordinance for the City of Davis, California, City of Davis, CA Energy Conservation Ordinance Project, 1974.

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.

With chapters like ‘Crap Happens’, ‘Deep Shit’ and ‘A Day in the Life of a Turd’, this is sure to be an interesting book, albeit possibly not one to read over lunch?

With this wonderful substance piling up in all the wrong places (after all, we’re running out of clean water, and yet we’re crapping in it…), this taboo topic deserves a lot more attention than it gets. Enjoy the book – and special thanks to the author Joseph Jenkins for making this freely available (warning: 22mb PDF – if you want to download chapter by chapter, scroll down on this page, or just read online here).

Oh, want a hard copy of this book? Here you go.

Written by a humanure composting practitioner and organic gardener with over 30 years experience, this third edition provides detailed scientific information on how humanure can be hygienically recycled, without fancy technological do-dads, a large bank account, toxic chemicals, or environmental pollution.

This unique handbook provides information on composting, soil fertility and microorganisms, alternative graywater systems and much more. It also gives detailed instructions on how you can build or buy your own sawdust toilet and compost bins for only a few dollars.

Defecating in our drinking water is perhaps one of our culture’s most curious, but least talked about, habits. This book gives compelling and detailed testimony as to why humanure should be constructively recycled:

* to prevent water pollution: (almost 4 trillion gallons of sewage effluent are dumped into our coastal waterways each year);
* to fertilize the soil: (rich in soil nutrients, humanure can be safely recycled by thermophilic composting);
* to protect our dwindling drinking water supplies: (nearly 1/3 of all household drinking water is used to flush toilets); and
* to enhance our health: Fertile soil not only grows great veggies, but nourishes our health and community’s well-being. – josephjenkins.com

Water, water, every where,
And all the boards did shrink;
Water, water, every where,
Nor any drop to drink. – Samuel Coleridge (1772-1834). The Rime of the Ancient Mariner, II

If you look down on our earth from space, the predominant colour is blue. The surface of our earth is approximately 70% water. In that respect, perhaps our planet would have been better called the Ocean, than the Earth. Yet, excepting expensive, energy intensive and environmentally problematic desalinisation techniques (PDF), we cannot use it for our daily personal water intake requirements.

• 97.5% of all water on Earth is salt water, leaving only 2.5% as fresh water
• Nearly 70% of that fresh water is frozen in the icecaps of Antarctica and Greenland; most of the remainder is present as soil moisture, or lies in deep underground aquifers as groundwater not accessible to human use
• Less than 1% of the world’s fresh water (~0.007% of all water on earth) is accessible for direct human use. This is the water found in lakes, rivers, reservoirs and those underground sources that are shallow enough to be tapped at an affordable cost. – globalchange

We’ve talked about Peak Oil and Peak Soil. Today we need to broach the topic of Peak Water. Despite our inherent natural tendency to think otherwise, fresh water is not an exhaustless commodity, and we are fast running out.

If per capita consumption of water resources continues to rise at its current rate, humankind could be using over 90 per cent of all available freshwater within 25 years, leaving just 10 per cent for the rest of the world’s species. – UNESCO (emphasis added)

More than 2.7 billion people will face severe water shortages by the year 2025 if the world continues consuming water at the same rate, the United Nations has warned. – BBC

Every day, it seems, we read about lakes disappearing, wells going dry, or rivers failing to reach the sea. But these stories typically describe local situations. It is not until we begin to compile the numerous national studies—such as an 824-page analysis of the water situation in China, a World Bank study of the water situation in Yemen, or a detailed U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) assessment of the irrigation prospect in the western United States—that the extent of emerging water shortages worldwide can be grasped. Only then can we see the extent of water overuse and the decline it can bring.

The world is incurring a vast water deficit—one that is largely invisible, historically recent, and growing fast. Because much of the deficit comes from aquifer overpumping, it is often not apparent. Unlike burning forests or invading sand dunes, falling water tables are often discovered only when wells go dry. – Lester R. Brown, Plan B 2.0 Rescuing a Planet Under Stress and a Civilization in Trouble (PDF)

The following passages outline the almost gold-rush type explosion of water extraction that occurred since the birth of the fossil-fuel based agricultural ‘Green Revolution’ days of post-World War II, and well demonstrates our natural tendency to assume natural resources are limitless:

There was a rush to exploit the limited groundwater resources. The groundwater was freely available at the cost of a bore and a pump. There was competition to use more and more groundwater. Water tables dropped, and farmers drilled deeper bores, and installed more powerful pumps. Almost simultaneously, all around the world, the wells began to run dry, and governments were quite unable to control the extraction of groundwater, or protect the resources.

Most governments did not know where the wells were, or the depth of the wells. Governments did not record water levels, but were certainly informed when farmers complained when their wells ran dry. Farmers, governments, and their professional advisors, had all believed that the wells would flow forever.

The groundwater rush was like a gold rush; it was a great uncontrolled bonanza. The International Water Management Institute has estimated that the total global withdrawal of groundwater is now about 1,000 cubic kilometers each year, but it is quite unsustainable. This great global rush to exploit available groundwater resources in our time is a one-off extraction of a limited natural resource. – Executive Intelligence Review

Over the last century, worldwide, demands on water have increased six-fold – twice the rate of population growth. Some of the main reasons are:

1. Population growth: the world’s population has doubled in the last forty-five years, and if present birth/death rates continue it is expected to double again in the next fifty. Whilst much of this growth is in developing nations, even the U.S. population (currently 300 million) has doubled in the last sixty years, and is expected to double again to 600 million in the next sixty-five. “The issue today, put simply, is that while the only renewable source of freshwater is continental rainfall (which generates a more or less constant global supply of 40,000 to 50,000 cubic km per year), the world population keeps increasing by roughly 85 million per year. Therefore the availability of freshwater per head is decreasing rapidly.” (Blue Gold) Water experts estimate that there is no more fresh water on earth than there was 2,000 years ago – when the population was three percent of its current size. (Imasar).
2. Agriculture: Approximately 70% of all fresh water is used for agricultural purposes worldwide. And, just as some nations have great oil resources, and others don’t, so it is with water. Dry Pakistan uses 97% of its freshwater for agriculture, and China (with 20% of the world’s population but only 7% of its water) uses 87%. For a quick comparison overview of water consumption for different dietary options, see tables on this page.
3. Industry: Worldwide, approximately 20% of freshwater is used for industry, and, increasingly, industry is battling agriculture for a greater share. Our consumer society promotes an escalation of excess, and everything produced consumes water. As our water tables shrink, we’re told to go shopping.
4. Home use: Around 10% of the world’s fresh water is used for private use. “The average American individual uses over 150 gallons of water each day. The average African family uses about five gallons of water each day.” (Water.org)

As water tables drop, disease increases in humans, flora and fauna. Additionally, diminishing water stores necessarily concentrate chemical run-offs from agriculture and industry, making remaining supplies increasingly dangerous – sometimes even resulting in toxic algae blooms that can convert dwindling freshwater reserves into poisonous sludge.

The miller sees not all the water that goes by his mill. – Robert Burton

We can be a very single-minded race. It is darkly fascinating to watch governments make profit-motivated policy decisions that not only ignore our diminishing water supplies, but that incentivise (subsidise) the systematic and inefficient escalation of their use. Somehow, our policymakers and industry heads manage to draw up economic strategies wholly independent of natural systems. Our most basic human needs take a back seat in the drive to “grow the economy”.

But, hard cold facts don’t defer to optimism or wishful thinking. Looking at economic and energy ’solutions’ in isolation from finite resource limitations is a dangerous, but contemporary, tendency. A recent news release indicates that the people of China are learning these lessons the hard way:

Apartment residents collecting rainwater in China

China Slows Coal-Liquids, Ethanol Push on Water Fear

Beijing is trying to slow the push on water-intensive alternative energy on mounting signs that China might face a serious water shortage in the future.

This may stymie the second-largest energy consumer’s plans to turn its huge coal reserves and agricultural land into transport fuel, and lead it to continue relying on greater imports to fuel its booming economy, a bullish factor for global oil markets.

An official… recently said China might halt coal-to-liquids (CTL) projects and stop ethanol production from corn.

… analysts said the NDRC comment reflected a shift in Beijing’s policy as droughts and pollution have led to hundreds of millions of people going without regular drinking water.

“If there’s any issue that can destroy China’s march forward, it’s water,”

… “Water levels in the upper reaches of the Yellow River have hit a historic low and officials have warned that China may run out of water by 2030.”

The Yellow River, China’s second longest, supplies water to over 150 million people and irrigates 15 percent of the country’s farmland. But in recent years, it has occasionally run dry before reaching the sea. – Reuters

Demand for water is outstripping replenishment rates in many parts of the world, and in some places many times over.

Scores of countries are running up regional water deficits, including nearly all of those in Central Asia, the Middle East, and North Africa, plus India, Pakistan, and the US.

… In 2015 nearly 3 billion out of the estimated global population of 7.5 billion people will find it difficult or impossible to find water for food, industry and personal needs. … According to John Gannon, a former assistant director of the CIA and former chairman of the National Intelligence Council, water scarcity now constitutes “a significant issue in security” as water shortages “encourage refugee movements which, if they spill over into other countries, can engage us.” “If people don’t have water, they can’t live. They are going to move or they are going to die.” According to the CIA report “Global Trends 2015” none of the proposed solutions – importing water, water conservation, expanded use of desalinization of seawater, or developing genetically modified crops that use less water or more saline water – will be sufficient to substantially change the outlook for water shortages in 2015…. – Earth’s Carrying Capacity (emphasis added)

Rapidly escalating glacier and snow melt trends brought about by climate change come as a volatile addition to the above. Sea water intrusion on coastal freshwater aquifers is another dilemma. Although a natural occurrence, rising sea levels as a result of global warming, combined with shrinking aquifers, can significantly magnify this problem.

Saltwater intrusion is a natural process, but it becomes an environmental problem when excessive pumping of fresh water from an aquifer reduces the water pressure and intensifies the effect, drawing salt water into new areas. – Wikipedia

Just to give an idea of the scale of our water problems, I’ve compiled just a few media reports from around the world:

All of which may translate to increased international tensions.

For example, Malaysia, which supplies about half of Singapore’s water, threatened to cut off that supply in 1997 after Singapore criticized its government policies. In Africa, relations between Botswana and Namibia have been severely strained by Namibian plans to construct a pipeline to divert water from the shared Okavango River to eastern Namibia.

The former mayor of Mexico City has predicted a war in the Mexican Valley in the foreseeable future if a solution to the city’s water crisis is not found soon. Much has been written about the potential for water wars in the Middle East, where water resources are severely limited. The late King Hussein of Jordan once said the only thing he would go to war with Israel over was water, because Israel controls Jordan’s water supply. – Blue Gold

No-one should feel safe and detached from these issues. Global Warming’s huddled masses will go wherever they have to, to survive.

So, is it all doom, gloom, death and despair? It would be a major understatement to say that it probably will be, so long as we cling to our present lifestyles and a ‘business as usual’ mindset. As we’ve already discovered, freshwater resources are not increasing, indeed, they cannot – yet our populations, and our population’s demands for more (of everything) are all rising just as our aquifers are failing. People worldwide are already feeling the pinch, if not enduring direct suffering. Even putting shortages aside, some believe water pollution is already a leading cause of death in the world – and it’s all happening just as those of us in The North have managed to convince everyone in The South that our water-intensive western lifestyle and diet is a ‘must-have’.

Our ability to overcome this end-of-the-line scenario may well depend on our ability to re-evaluate the priorities of our lives – to learn to find satisfaction in a simpler existence, and to create a society that places far more value on access to clean water, healthy food and healthy local communities than it does on artificialities. I think we need to transform our current deformed understanding of ’success’, diffusing it with visions and aspirations of sustainability.

Of concern is seeing the same mindset applied to this problem as is proffered in response to our other environmental issues – a patch and continue ’strategy’: anything but adjust our economies, our industries and our lifestyles:

Antarctic ice offers a remedy. … Tugs with icebergs in tow would be welcome not only to arid areas. Industry disastrously pollutes rivers and lakes in every part of the world. Current consumption makes use of only 0.01% of available fresh water. Over 70% of this valuable store is to be found in Antarctic glaciers, which consist of the world’s cleanest water. An average 2,500 cu km of ice is added to them every year, while just over 2,000 cu km drifts off as icebergs – a steadily renewed source of perfect drinking water. – TerraDaily

“Industry disastrously pollutes rivers and lakes in every part of the world”, and we use water in highly inefficient ways – yet the solution is not to change industry or industrial methods, but to use more energy to retrieve water from Antarctic icebergs. Patch, and continue.

Worse, the industry solution to diminishing water supplies, is to profit from it:

As the water crisis intensifies, governments around the world – under pressure from transnational corporations – are advocating a radical solution: the privatization, commodification and mass diversion of water. Proponents say that such a system is the only way to distribute water to the world’s thirsty. However, experience shows that selling water on the open market does not address the needs of poor, thirsty people. On the contrary, privatized water is delivered to those who can pay for it, such as wealthy cities and individuals and water-intensive industries, such as agriculture and high-tech. As one resident of the high desert in New Mexico observed after his community’s water had been diverted for use by the high-tech industry “Water flows uphill to money.” – Blue Gold

I would like to proffer a solution that involves change, and substantial change at that. I’m not afraid to dare to be different here, however, as social change is afoot, whether we like it or not. In the words of Simon and Garfunkel – I’d rather be a hammer than a nail. We either act, or react.

Peak Oil, Peak Soil, and Peak Water – they all share one central common denominator as we look at solutions: soil building. Please bear with me for a moment. With a little attention, you’ll come out the other end of the next two paragraphs unharmed, but hopefully inspired:

At left, a soil with high humus content – making it rich in carbon (indicated by the darker colour), nutrients and water retention capacity. The crumbly texture of this soil can be compared somewhat to a sponge. A humus-rich soil can hold up to 90% of its weight in water (remember – 70-80% of the water we use today is for agriculture, mostly irrigation). This soil also facilitates the ability of plants to draw water from beneath – through a process called capillary action (similar to what happens when you put a sponge onto a wet benchtop). Such soils have an increased cation exhange capacity – which translates to the ability of soil molecules to bind and hold nutrients to themselves. This soil is full of microorganisms and other soil life – the organic matter, air and moisture content makes it a miniature universe of activity. These micro-organisms take nutrients in the soil and feed them in balanced quantities to plant roots (supplying trace minerals and elements not provided in the NPK concoction ‘intraveneously injected’ via the soluble applications of agribusiness), fostering their own natural defense mechanisms against insects and temperature and weather extremes. The whole ‘package’ provides stability and protection against floods, droughts, disease and insect susceptibility – all of which are increasing as our world’s climate continues in its present state of flux. And, it’s all free.

Nitrogen, Phosphorus, and Potassium on the Menu Credit: throbgoblins

Conversely, in the lighter coloured soil profile (above, at right), we see the typical result of our chemical-intensive, heavily mechanised monocrop farming system. This soil invites hardy strong-rooted ‘weeds’ to take up residence (these very plants are working as the first stage of a natural process that seeks to restore the soil to the condition seen at left – by trying to break through the hard packed soil to create channels for air to flow, so microorganisms may return and take up residence, etc.). This soil is unhealthy, and not ‘crop ready’. It requires violent physical interventions, and a barrage of artificial stimulation and inputs – i.e. mechanical aeration, and chemical fertilisers – and its CO2 content is being systematically lost to the atmosphere through the application of both. Much of the chemicals applied are leached into the shrinking water table below. For ‘light’ (i.e. sandy) soils, the application of water and nutrients are regularly required since the lack of organic matter causes rapid leaching. For ‘heavy’ soils (high in clay content), water will often pool on the surface, creating anaerobic conditions that further destroy soil life, and promote disease. The compacted nature of these soils makes flooding a serious issue (water sits on top, instead of percolating down – or worse, moves rapidly sideways, destroying land and property). The heavier the farm equipment used, the more the compaction – the more the compaction, the heavier and stronger the equipment must be to break it up in preparation for planting. This soil is virtually devoid of life and organic matter, so the plant’s natural immunity is lost, necessitating drenching with energy-intensive fossil-fuel based poisons. This soil is the ‘prize’ of corporate agribusiness. The farmer in possession of such a soil is the captive customer of an unhealthy profit-making machine – the drivers of which being the only ‘winners’ in this picture.

If you multiply the above implications for water and energy use across the vast area of land we currently use for cultivation, and add to this the enormous potential of soil for CO2 mitigation, you may then begin to see that a shift in soil management techniques to those that work in harmony with nature, as opposed to battling with it to the bitter end, adds up to planet-saving quantities of resource conservation.

Some say we only have a few years before Peak Oil issues will become significantly more pronounced. Some say we only have the next few years to reshape our society and to head into a low-carbon economy, lest we push our climate into dangerous and irreversible feedback loops. And, don’t forget in all this, that as water becomes increasingly scarce, food production will drop. If we ignore these warnings, and these predictions come to pass, our societies will likely violently break apart in a dog eat dog fight for the remnants of current civilisation. It’s not a pretty picture. But, working away from the large-scale monocrop agribusiness model, and transitioning to a more diverse, small-scaled sustainable farming system, could allow, in addition to the benefits described above, the much-needed reduction in focus on global trade and the obscene product and food swaps that come with it – exchanging this, instead, for an active re-building of sustainable localised systems that value and incentivise health, over inequitable wealth. That health being all-encompassing – for individuals, communities, societies, and for the environment they all depend on.

Yes, save water in the shower, don’t let it run when you’re cleaning your teeth, put a brick in your loo’s cistern, harvest water from your guttering, and follow all the other water-saving tips you’ll find on this and other green sites, but let’s not ignore the largest and most glaring aspect of our water, fossil-fuel and CO2 wastage: our entire societal and economic structure, and the malformed agricultural system that makes it all possible.

Watching social, industrial, and political movements at the moment, there is a clear tendency to simplistically grapple with the individual fibres of an unravelling world, rather than examine the entire cloth. Amongst other things, there is the subsidising of even greater strain on our soil and water reserves, and the naive belief we can actually replace the vast amounts of energy we have come to rely on from fossil fuels with a few wind and wave farms – whilst continuing to shop, consume, fly, drive, and promote the very industries that have driven us into this corner.

I would invite you to step back and look at the bigger picture. We are the first entire civilisation to convince ourselves we can live in the world, while not actually being part of it; that we can control nature, whilst ignoring its unchangeable processes. We have thus marginalised the value of the most vital aspects of our existence – healthy food, clean water and fresh air – and, by doing so, we have corrupted them all.

In closing, if you haven’t already – please take some time to get familiar with some of the issues that are shaping our future. Seek out and support farmers that understand the need for diversity, and that focus on the soil rather than the plant. Indeed, consider becoming one yourself! Start small – discover the satisfaction, savings and increased nutrition of having your own garden, and from knowing that what you’re eating is fresh, and free – and carcinogen free!

There’s a world of change that needs to be made, but, change it we must.

Till taught by pain, Men really know not what good water’s worth…. – Lord Byron

Five women actively involved in permaculture home garden development in Jawfa and Jawasari, poor Palestinian refugee villages in the Dead Sea Valley.

We have directed the directly to supporting good ground work action by the purchase of good quality gardening tools and equipment.

Five sets of: -

• 2 cubic meter water tanks, to be mounted on the roof of each house for gravity feed, mains water supply is only available twice a week for a few hours and ALL water needed has to be stored in tanks. Mounting the tanks on the rooves of the houses will give us enough gravity fall pressure to drip irrigate fruit trees, herb and vegetable gardens.
• A small electric pump to pump the mains water when it is supplied up to the tank on the roof. This is needed as the mains water pressure is often not sufficient to lift the water to roof height.
• 25m of good quality garden hose.
• Wheelbarrow.
• Secateurs of the VERY best quality available, Swiss made Felco brand.
• Pruning saw.
• Shovel
• Hoe.
• Mattock.
• Small half size mattock.
• Pitchfork
• Metal rake.
• 10m by 2m of shade clothe. for raising seedlings.
• 25m by 1.5m fine square mesh bird wire netting, for small animal housing
• 25M by 1.5m chain link fencing wire for fencing small animal pens.
• 5 fruit trees.
• 40 varieties of .non hybrid heir loom vegetable seedlings.
• Small compost worm farm.

The five women have agreed to care for and maintain the tools, plant the fruit trees, install the provided equipment, materials and to grow the vegetable seedlings with a main aim of saving extending and sharing the seed.

We are hoping to extend the action of these 5 women to become a small NGO with the intention of raising funds to educate and demonstrate to other people in their region extending the of success locally.

We intend to continue contributing to worthy ground-based actions such as this with every course we teach.

Cheers Geoff & Nadia Lawton