Swales on Contour can Drought-proof Gardens, Farms and Pastures with Water Harvested Passively
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- Опубліковано 2 жов 2015
- "A swale is a water harvesting ditch on contour with a soft mound on the lower side, designed to slow water down to a standstill, eliminate erosion, infiltrate the surrounding area with water, and recharge the groundwater table.” Geoff Lawton
"Slow it, spread it, sink it"
Excellent and Bravo! to all of you from here in the States. The very best of luck to you.
This is so well explained, it should reach a larger audience.
They should add these to the landscape in Central Europe, to retain more water during winter in the soil. We suffered greatly from drought this summer, partly caused by a reduced runoff from glaciers etc. Retaining the precipitation longer may make our landscape more drought-resistant.
Great video! We appreciate you taking the time to film this & show it!
It looks like you are off to a great start! Geoff's ideas are really great because much of this knowledge is ignored in the west. I would reccomend also taking a look at rice paddy terraces too. There you will find the same ideas that have evolved over thousands of years of practice. East asia is where you can find next level permaculture. Swales are like skiing on the bunny hill while terraces are more like black diamond level permaculture. It has worked for thousands of years there. Not a new idea by any means but a really good idea that is worth spreading for sure!
you made the idea so clear ,may be better than most , great
We got some miny swales and a retention pond in the Friendly Food Forest. Interesting job and video!
Mini swales can work just as well as big ones! especially if you make several in a row. :)
Thankyou for posting the video. Very encouraging.
Probably the best explanation of a Swale I've seen yet. The only thing I'd add is they work best if you can add in as much organic matter as possible to the berm. The berm then acts as a sponge holding the water in like a reservoir. I love the description of the downhill benefits of a swale. Your downhill fruit and nut trees would still be getting water from rains that happened weeks earlier because trees root deep. Another reason for swales is to keep nutrients from washing away during heavy rains. They tend to collect on the backsides of the berms in the channel. You can create small terraces between swales for growing food as well. It's how they did it on the Loess Plateau in China.
Grayhand what do you mean terraces between Swales. If you have links or keywords I'd appreciate it.
Thanks for sharing related books, one of the best ones : ‘Desert or Paradise from Sepp Holzer’.
Great job and information
gotta hail the swale.
Great work
Very educational!
Amazing more people should see.
I would love to see an update now that rain has fallen.
+1
+1
+42
Search ‘Pani Foundation’ to see work and results after rains.
how Awesome very beneficial ;)
Great stuff. This is the best systems out their to suck back the rain and hold it way better than any other water system. I my self have a hill maybe too steep and i am looking into terrace building for this area. Started to get it in a 10-15 degree fall back. Im doing it slow as Im waiting for natural rain to find my level as i go.
Does anyone know the incline degree were a terrace is better?
Geoff has grabbed the ball and it looks like its been passed out heading for the wing. Love seeing how far its going. Global movement looks like! Thanks Geoff Lawton/ Bill Mollison. Is there any other key names to get ideas?
Well done love to see more.
Good video
Could you give us an update on the swales?
Thank you so much for this video, I really appreciate you taking the time to explain all this stuff for our community.
Do you have any other videos on swales?
I live in Central Oregon and I have some property where I want to put in a swale for fruit trees but I am concerned that the area that I want to dig the swale might be too steep or the contour it isn’t adequate for what I want to do.
passive water retention is sensible terraforming
amazing i got it
Any updates?
Looks great!
If you wanted to move your water to another location how much of a grade could be used? I am thinking a 2% or 3 % might be too steep.
Genius
The farmers have been doing this in Australia for a long time,due to drought,low rain fall at times they have to.
The cover crops are not enough to capture the water?
👍👍👍
Could it be attractive to mosquitos?
Some guys in the field of permaculture like Richard Perkins talk about how swales can destabilize the terrain and cause problems like landslides and other issues. I doubt you'll see this and respond, but I'd love to know if there have been any negatives to creating the swales on your land.
I am little bit concerned about any possible landslide caused by the digging
I believe this is a technique used for water retention in drought stricken areas, especially in hill sides, so the chance of landslide is nil to begin with. But you raise a good point, since the PNW is generally a very wet area and prone to landslides.
Would it possible to keep fish in them as a secondary crop? Does anybody do this?
No, swales are not canals. Ideally, they are designed so that water will infiltrate the soil within about 24 hours; minimizing standing water helps prevent mosquitoes from breeding in them. The idea is to slow down precipitation events to minimize erosion and flooding, store water in the soil, and consequently recharge aquifers.
One consequence of a series of swales is that the water table rises over time and sometimes creates springs downslope, which may or may not be a good thing, depending on the topography of the area.
Could you add hugelkulter to the berms or would that effect the integrity?
Big Pete if anything hugelkultur with tree crops will increase the integrity of the the berm
They are digging in a old clearcut I guarantee a lot of old tree parts are in that berm
i have pure clay on slit slope 18% inclination, no one wants to dig, geoenginer demands installation of heavy duty posts driven in to the slit stone base :v be careful when looking for land to farm it, some plots can be tempting but some problems are little bit hard to go around :v im planting trees in hope they going to root strong, and swales have to wait untill they stabilize so 10years :o
Can earth slides occur with this method?
It's obvious, you make a big cut into the ground, the water soaking in downhill adds weight and there you go eventually. That's why 2:37
There are several bad examples where people went completely overboard. The consequences can range between simple inconvenience to quite devastating. After all water is one of nature most powerful forces.
Either case those examples where more into the realm of "dam" than a modest swale so to speak. With lack of, or badly designed overflows, spillways, etc. ;-)
Personally I´m not a big fan of large amounts or size of swales. Usually render the landscape difficult to work/pass. Render the use of mechanized systems almost impracticable, etc. Anyone trying to use a simple lawn mower can understand.
The design and use should be a really well thought process. Because there´s amazing advantages in the proper use of this landscape feature. But should also be very alert regarding the cons.
Worth considering also, water barriers, underground dams, key line, etc. etc. there´s several methods. Even soil improvement with a simple cover crop or trees makes for a larger water retention, than bare soil and that´s without heavy machinery or making scars on the landscape. ;-)
Cheers
This is a double edged sword method of regeneration growth . Loose soils can create landslides !
The plants hold the soil from all I have been seeing.
Lol....I live in the Pacific Northwest ...it's a rain forest... lol
Which is why when water/rainfall fails HERE it is such a shock, and why building systems now, before climate change makes things worse, would be a really good idea. I'd hate to lose our lush forests.
Mano, Loved the Video but... lets get tech savy eh!
My swales make their own water. Amateur...
How ya gonna lawnmower that swale? Weeds, bushes, trees.
sheep...
Mulch heavily
Swales aren't for grass. Permaculture focuses on highly functional and productive plants: fruit trees, nut trees, legumes, herbs, companion plants, etc.
HOW FUCKING HARD THIS IS?!?!?!?!?!?!? WE NEED TO SAVE EARTH SOON!!!!
This is utter insanity. This is a trench. No where near the swales Geoff designs and recommends with gradual sloped sides.
Swales can be all sorts of depths it sounds like. This trench he's dug will simply erode on the uphill side and slowly fill in the trench and end up being a bit shallower..
I'm not sure I'd call it insane though. What should be considered is how will the new water retention affect the landscape? Will it cause landslides where there weren't any chances of it before? Some permaculture experts are not fans of swales for this reason. I would love to know how this guys land has faired 7 years on now.
Swales are fundamentally flawed! Berms on contour with berms perpendicular to those berms connected to those berms. All berms should be connected
Convince gov to let everyone have an acre of free tax free fertile land that they can live on and grow a food forest on.
Watch earthlings the movie its free on youtube.
Where are governments going to find this land? 36 billion acres in the world, over 7 billion population. That leaves a bit more than 5 acres/ person. 4 0f those acres are tundra, mountain top and desert. You'll soon exhaust the arable land with a serf family living in poverty and a barely subsistence life.
they tried this in india with land ceiling act.. forcefully grab land from large farmers to distribute it to other labourers.... and now we have world's worst agricultural productivity... most of those small land owners dont even farm... they just sold it.... or keep in barren in search of capital appreciation while they migrated to city to again become laborers... so these communist ideas dont work...
@@shashiy4545 letting people use air and water for free isnt communist, and neither is letting people have land. Everyone has the right to own land and grow their own food if they want. Just cuz people r powerful enuf to steal and control an area doesnt make them the rightful owners. India has the worst agricultural productivity when it has some of the best agricultural land really? i doubt it. There's tons of farms in India growing many things. Well maybe just make it so land cant be legally sold. And encourage people to grow a food forest on their land.
U think lettin people breath and drink water from a natural source for free is communist and doesnt work? u rather get charged to breath and drink water from a natural source? U think whoever is powerful enuf to control the air and natural water supply and charge people to use it should do that? R u or someone u kno a farmer? Land is a basic survival need and a natural resource like air and natural water sources, no one has the right to force people to pay to use some of these just cuz they can, especially when it comes to letting people freely use some land to live on, build a house on, and grow their own food. Depriving people of land resulting in them going hungry is abuse, and they shouldnt be forced to work so they can buy food from who they r forced to be dependent on, thats like slavery. And they shouldnt be forced to work just so they can buy or rent land that they need to live, thats like slavery.
@@bvegannow1936 even after i gave an example on how that this land grabbing and distributing does not work ..you still want to believe it will work.... ? I live in India and my family lost land to land ceiling and i know what happened to that land as it all now sits barren subdivided among family of freeloading recipients.... What has reduce poverty is private property and freedom to buy and sell thing voluntarily which is things other than agriculture... Here gov even stops companies form buying farm land so our supply chain is broken... 50% of food goes to waste as no one wants to invest in agri storage infrastructure... gov controls grain prices... this has completely destroyed our agriculture as thousands of farmers commit suicide every year unable to bear losses...
Infact what has destroyed indian agriculture is free things (this thing you call as rights)..free land , free electricity, free water free every thing... when things are free people dont value them this led to irrational use of bore-wells to deplete ground water, irrational use of subsidies fertilizer to kill the soil... Indian suffered some of the highest malnutrition and poor agri productivity in the world despite having massive agri land... thanks to the minuscule individual land holdings that people only hold on to keep getting freebies from gov in the name of agricultural subsidies...
Now if we are talkign about gov giving up the land it has under its control to private ownership and removing subsidies i am all for it... and i support that... but just saying that gov should give some one free land will magically turn them into farmers is fiction.... most people hate farm life of hard back breaking work that is why they are running to cities in search of desk jobs... farming is very risky profession with weather deciding success or failure... so only few people are suited for this who can weather the ups and downs...
@@shashiy4545 they land grabbed and distrubuted to the rich and powerful, that didnt work for the people starving to death cuz they have no land to grow food on.
Let people have freedom to have some land as their private property to grow food and live on.
All The land was pretty much stollen by the rich and powerful.
U seem to not care about the poor but r upset cuz they took some of the land ur family had and now u or they dont make as much money cuz of it.
Your family probably didnt have the right to all that land if it was alot, but seems gov probably could have done a better job at who they distributed it to, such as to someone who was actually going to use it. But its like someone with 2 houses who just lets one sit empty all year long. They could say if u leave the lot vaccant for more than a year that people can come live there and grow food there temporarily at least. Or they could say u can have an acre of land on condition that u use it.
Gov shouldnt control grain prices.