arid climate / desert / growing https://b2012overleven.runboard.com/t644 Runboard| arid climate / desert / growing en-us Fri, 29 Mar 2024 07:50:18 +0000 Fri, 29 Mar 2024 07:50:18 +0000 https://www.runboard.com/ rssfeeds_managingeditor@runboard.com (Runboard.com RSS feeds managing editor) rssfeeds_webmaster@runboard.com (Runboard.com RSS feeds webmaster) akBBS 60 how much water do you need...?https://b2012overleven.runboard.com/p3594,from=rss#post3594https://b2012overleven.runboard.com/p3594,from=rss#post3594In this one talk, Allan Savory describes how there's this flood of rain in this region in Africa and the very next day the location is dry and dusty and looks like any other desert again... Water is not, and should not, be about quantity. I'm reminded of the rocket mass heater that will do the same heating as the most expensive heaters but at about 5% of the amount of wood/fuel. So if you're talking about SOURCING fuel, FIRST you should have covered how to properly burn it. First things first. Otherwise you might have found a way to get twice as much fuel, or how to get it with half the effort, when you COULD have first implemented a way that USES 20 times less. Water is the same way. Being ignorant before, the first things i picked up about water had to do with cool dams and hydraulic ram pumps. Yeah, they're still cool, but after a few years of gradually picking up bits and tidbits by permaculture experts it became clear that the best practices require no sourcing of water other than that already offered by nature. Like in the above example supplied by Allan Savory, there's usually enough water; the point is not to waste it. And when i'm talking waste, i'm talking about people and entire peoples that commonly waste 99% of the water nature throws their way. This is NOT a fringe issue in the least. "How is this possible?", one might ask. How can peoples that suffer from drought and watch their children die from thirst and malnutrition not only waste water but so much of it? Well... for insights into WHY people do the insane things they do, you'll have to head towards the posts under PSYCHOLOGY. To learn about water and water management, read on here. Suffice to say that the experts can show you that things can usually be done dozens of times better than general practices suggest are possible. Geoff Lawton [the prince of permaculture] has put out his video Greening the Desert which shows how one of the most arid regions in the world can be turned into an oasis by applying some basic permacultural principles. It doesn't take too much work, money, or education; all it takes is some real insight into how things work. What Greening the Desert really illustrates is that no matter how bad you think you have it, it's already been proven that situations that were even worse have been successfully healed. So don't burn 20 times the amount of wood you need to by running a mainstream heater; don't eat 20 times what you need to by eating a mainstream diet; and don't use 20 times the amount of water you need by sourcing water by mainstream ways. First things first. And then that hydraulic ram pump really hits the mark; when you can get a trickle of water up somewhere but your knowledge of how to grow foods makes that trickle enough to sustain you, you have stacked your knowledge in a way that is life-altering. Then you can probably set up shop somewhere that would take anybody adhering to mainstream tactics a colossal dam to achieve as much. Then you don't need hundreds of thousands of bucks to build that dam or to bring in the water you require. When people see the oasis Geoff Lawton designed in the desert in Jordan, i'm sure they're sure that those plants now thrive there because of some underground water reservoir or something. But there isn't. The only thing that came to that place previously covered with dust and rocks was Geoff Lawton. And anybody can accomplish the same, which is also to say that everything you accomplish won't be recognized for what it is. People will think that cheating or luck or great gobs of money were the cause. All that matters, though, is that anyone can build an oasis almost anywhere in the world, which in turn means that no one has to go out looking for prime real estate, nor that one has to be a millionaire to find a place to thrive. For survival situations it means that situations that are lethal to most people [like 99%+] are survivable when you don't live by the needs demanded by mainstream thinking.nondisclosed_email@example.com (TheLivingShadow)Mon, 03 Aug 2015 12:31:12 +0000 Talus Garlandhttps://b2012overleven.runboard.com/p3310,from=rss#post3310https://b2012overleven.runboard.com/p3310,from=rss#post3310nondisclosed_email@example.com (TheLivingShadow)Sun, 13 Apr 2014 08:53:13 +0000 air wellshttps://b2012overleven.runboard.com/p3309,from=rss#post3309https://b2012overleven.runboard.com/p3309,from=rss#post3309research nondisclosed_email@example.com (TheLivingShadow)Sun, 13 Apr 2014 08:52:02 +0000 dew pondhttps://b2012overleven.runboard.com/p3308,from=rss#post3308https://b2012overleven.runboard.com/p3308,from=rss#post3308"There is [in England] at least one wandering gang of men... who will construct for the modern farmer a pond which, in any suitable situation in a sufficiently dry soil, will always contains water. The water is not derived from springs or rainfall, and is speedily lost if even the smallest rivulet is allowed to flow into the pond. "The gang of dew-pond makers commence operations by hollowing out the earth for a space far in excess of the apparent requirements of the proposed pond. They then thickly cover the whole of the hollow with a coating of dry straw. The straw in turn is covered by a layer of well-chosen, finely puddled clay, and the upper surface of the clay is then closely strewn with stones. Care has to be taken that the margin of the straw is effectively protected by clay. The pond will eventually become filled with water, the more rapidly the larger it is, even though no rain may fall. If such a structure is situated on the summit of a down, during the warmth of a summer day the earth will have stored a considerable amount of heat, while the pond, protected from this heat by the non-conductivity of the straw, is at the same time chilled by the process of evaporation from the puddled clay. The consequence is that during the night the warm air is condensed on the surface of the cold clay. As the condensation during the night is in excess of the evaporation during the day, the pond becomes, night by night, gradually filled. Theoretically, we may observe that during the day, the air being comparatively charged with moisture, evaporation is necessarily less than the precipitation during the night. In practice it is found that the pond will constantly yield a supply of the purest water. "The dew pond will cease to attract the dew if the layer of straw should get wet, as it then becomes of the same temperature as the surrounding earth, and ceases to be a non-conductor of heat. This practically always occurs if a spring is allowed to flow into the pond, or if the layer of clay (technically called the 'crust') is pierced." Additional construction details were explained in Scientific American (May 1934): "An essential feature of the dew-pond is its impervious bottom, enabling it to retain all the water it gathers, except what is lost by evaporation, drunk by cattle, or withdrawn by man. The mode of construction varies in some details. The bottom commonly consists of a layer of puddled chalk or clay, over which is strewn a layer of rubble to prevent perforation by the hoofs of animals. A layer of straw is often added, above or below the chalk or clay. The ponds may measure from 30 to 70 feet across, and the depth does not exceed three or four feet.” nondisclosed_email@example.com (TheLivingShadow)Sun, 13 Apr 2014 08:37:05 +0000 water collection using brinehttps://b2012overleven.runboard.com/p3209,from=rss#post3209https://b2012overleven.runboard.com/p3209,from=rss#post3209hygroscopic brine – saline solution which absorbs moisture – runs down a tower-shaped unit and absorbs water from the air. It is then sucked into a tank a few meters off the ground in which a vacuum prevails. Energy from solar collectors heats up the brine, which is diluted by the water it has absorbed. Because of the vacuum, the boiling point of the liquid is lower than it would be under normal atmospheric pressure. This effect is known from the mountains: as the atmospheric pressure there is lower than in the valley, water boils at temperatures distinctly below 100 degrees Celsius. The evaporated, non-saline water is condensed and runs down through a completely filled tube in a controlled manner. The gravity of this water column continuously produces the vacuum and so a vacuum pump is not needed. The reconcentrated brine runs down the tower surface again to absorb moisture from the air. source I think i figured out how this should work. On the top edges of mountains/hills there's always a lot of wind. The brine-soaked cloth should be in the wind, just not in the sun. It drips into the basin and the now less concentrated brine is sucked up into a (hermetically sealed) basin that's heated by the sun (though a fire underneath it would work as well). The vapor continues on through condensors, from where it drips into a (hermetically sealed) catchment, sucking more vapor as the previous is condensed and drips down. nondisclosed_email@example.com (TheLivingShadow)Sun, 10 Nov 2013 11:38:34 +0000 arid climate / desert / growinghttps://b2012overleven.runboard.com/p3208,from=rss#post3208https://b2012overleven.runboard.com/p3208,from=rss#post3208 In 4 hours you get 1 cup of water.nondisclosed_email@example.com (TheLivingShadow)Sun, 10 Nov 2013 11:37:04 +0000