The better use of the physically available water on our land protects the environment and does good to planetary, health, land use value are improved, biomes and bio diversity increase. Be a water protector.
Planning starts with the question: What is the state of the landscape? Not one landscape is similar to the other. The picture shows an intended community development on a steep hillside.
It is a story.
The planners approached WaterTrust to verify their planning according to the needs of a strategical environment impact assessment SEIA. We were shocked. Golf courses on a mountain range? A red alert for environmentalists. We had no prejudice and went to the site.
We had seen the area many times before when we visited the beautiful lake. When we entered the site for an autopsy we were shocked. We could not imagine that the landscape was so desertified. degraded landscape. Nobody sees it from down at the lake. The area must have been burned several times and the remnants are disgustingly overgrazed. Meter deep chaotic run off canyons crossed this site with about 1500 mm/a precipitation. Such potential, such ignorance.
We made the SEIA, we presented our design based on water harvesting to experts from IUCN, NABU and the EU commission. They agreed, that this project would improve the protected Natura 2000 habitat which hosted the project. Because the impacts of the project on the biosphere outperform by far the status quo. The area has water, but not to manage it transforms it into bar rock. With 1500 mm precipitation. Stupid.
The big is in the small and the small is in the big
Another story
This site is located on the flank of a North South oriented valley. Land formation and plant cover we showed rain fall run offs. The first landscaping measure was the integration of the physical water flow. We shaped the site according to this parameters. We built a cleansing pond in such a run off formation and directed the water to a horizontal deeper area to slow down the flow.
This flat plot halts the power of the running water which maeanders towards an unsealed ground water enrichment pond. The pics show the rich Algae population due to the “over fertilization” of the run off with ashes from the fire in August. In the further purifying process they will settle and are sequestred in fungae, root and plant.
The water travels in openair chaneles downwards into an unsealed pond to enrich the ground water level. It continous to another maeandering aerea where it finishes in a clay sealed storing pond. The overflow nutures the third constructed wetland with hundreeds of palm sprouts germinating
The run off of the site is crystal clear water, ashes and sedimentations have been removed and run off peak supply level delayed. The area has become a water selfsufficient biodiversity hot spot fostering the regeneration of the area outside this site.
Landscape design with heart and spirit. WaterTrust
