Any time water encounters anything but a perfectly level surface, it will move. This movement is called drainage. Water will always move at right angle to contour in response to gravity on a non-level surface – i.e it will move straight down slope. Water will continue to move straight down slope until its course is somehow altered by something in its path. In this way water movement is predictable at the macro scale. This is drainage.
Anytime water is being drained (moving) from one area to another, you have an opportunity to design those patterns of water movement throughout your landscape to reduce or eliminate any potential for damage while maximizing its productive use and ecological benefit. This is the exact opposite of how drainage is treated in most modern design contexts – as a “problem” to be “solved” with what I call ‘hydrophobic design’ – that solely focuses on getting the water AWAY as fast as possible, without thought to the opportunity lost and the negative downstream impacts that WILL have upstream consequences in the future.
We can do WAY BETTER at designing and patterning water drainage than our current societal norm. By selecting appropriate drainage elements and DESIGNING & MAINTAINING them well you can turn what others might look at as a problem into a massive advantage in your landscape. Think of these drainage elements as tools in your toolkit that you can select from as needed when designing or retrofitting your landscape for improved hydrological function – they all have their right place, time and context for use.
This is the first show in what will be a series on broad acre water systems design. As of now, there will be a show and accompanying blog post for the following sub-topics that make up a holistic broadacre water system:
- Water Drainage Elements (today’s show)
- Water Infiltration Elements
- Water Storage Elements
- Erosion Prevention & Repair
- Water Pumping Elements
Each show in the series will be accompanied by a blog post with detailed write-ups on each of the elements we talk about in here. Each element write up will contain a description of the element, followed by a list of functions it performs, a list of context-specific design criteria for determining whether or not it is appropriate in a given situation, general rules of thumb/design criteria to follow when designing and installing it, and additional resources for continued learning.
Show Resources
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Music by Alex Grohl
