We are a Swiss NGO headquartered in Geneva. We promote rainwater as a sustainable resource. IRHA are committed to evolving integrated, sustainable living practices. Cultivating resilient ecosystems and careful resource use assists communities in adapting to climate change.

Aug.-Sept. 19: Planting Rain

Planting rain as animal fodder in Loul Sessene, with agricultural students from the University of Sine Saloum (27.08.2019)

This newsletter reports on how IRHA’s pilot projects, advocacy, partners and rainwater-harvesting heroes are planting rain to create resilient communities. We borrow the image of ‘planting rain’ from Brad Lancaster, whose book Rainwater Harvesting is reviewed below.

Plant Rain: Don't Let it Run Down the Drain!

Infiltrating rainwater within landscapes reduces the disastrous consequences of flooding and drought on communities and ecosystems. Thus, it furthers the aim of the UN’s thirteenth Sustainable Development Goal (SDG 13). Heavy precipitation events have increased in the recent decades (Hartmann et al., 2013). Deluges are more common in many areas, and positively correlated with the rise in mean global temperature. Yet droughts are increasing in the Mediterranean and West Africa (IPCC 2018). In this context, increasing within-catchment rainwater harvesting needs to be part of the ‘fair and sustainable’ transformative change that was called for at September’s SDG Summit in New York.

IRHA’s current pilot projects focus on planting rainwater in a rural region suffering from drought near Fatick in Senegal, and in a rural zone close to Nepal’s rainiest city, Pokhara. Features common to both these projects include collaboration with local NGOs and close consultation with local communities to address their water needs. Both projects advance the theme of this year’s World Water Week “Water for society – Including all”. David Kerkhofs, from ‘Humana to the People’, points out that WASH projects need to be collaborative, with local actors identifying their own needs and co-developing initiatives with partners that are sustainable in the long-term. We agree with Kerkhors. We want to emphasize that planting rain to advance SDGs 13 and 6 (the latter through WASH projects, using harvested rainwater) should involve local actors to keep water in place. Funding such initiatives requires that money for integrated water resource management be channeled into well-informed NGOs, working at the grassroots level, rather than through banks and big business.

After a summer of Calabash building in collaboration with APAF-Senegal, Florian Biesler reports on his experience, working on this agroforestry pilot project in Senegal. > Read more

Before she travels to Nepal next month as IRHA’s field representative, Blandine Barthod tells us what her work in the Pokhara region will involve. > Read more

 

Advocacy: Plant Rain!

IRHA was present at the 5thAlternatiba Léman Festival in Geneva. We designed our stall to dramatize a point made by our president, Han Heijnen: if people living in rural regions had a piece of clean plastic tarp with a hole in the middle, they might improvise a temporary harvesting water system; just stake out the tarp and place a receptacle under the hole. Collecting rain would provide a valuable, supplementary water resource. We shared information about differing rainwater harvesting practices with Alternatiba festival goers. We also discovered some of their local rainwater harvesting activities. > Read more

Developing the work of the Rainwater Harvesting Alliance, our secretariat has recently also:

  • Underscored the value of rainwater harvesting, storm water management and nature-based solutions in the Swiss Water Partnership paper we endorsed this month.
  • Formalised our partnership with Lanka Rain water Harvesting Forum.
  • Given workshops on rainwater harvesting for the Swiss Development Cooperation FEDEVACO. These workshops explored the role of rainwater harvesting in relation to the nexus hydrological stress, food security and health.

Publications

SPOTLIGHT

In this new section of our newsletter, we outline a recent article on RWH. For our Planting Rain issue, we draw your attention to researchers from Florence University’s Water Harvesting Lab,whose article Planting Waterscapes examines waterscape management in the Santa Cruz region of Bolivia. > Read more

BOOK REVIEW

Brad Lancaster has published a revised, third edition of his authoritative book Rainwater Harvesting for Drylands and Beyond: Volume 1, Guiding Principles to Welcome Rain into Your Life and Landscape. Lancaster has decades of experience in planting rain in Tucson, Arizona. He began to counter poor waterscape management after meeting water farmer Zephaniah Phiri Maseko. This man’s wisdom, and his practice of long and thoughtful observation of land to understand how rain flows through it and shapes it, is at the core of Lancaster’s rainwater harvesting practice. Tucson receives more water from falling rain than its consumers use. But destruction of the region's forest, and development of impermeable urban zones has led to water scarcity, as Lancaster explains in this Ted talk. His book addresses this problem. It tweaks Maseko's principles of water infiltration to fit the needs of his Tucson home. This involves creating mulch-filled depressions in his garden where rainwater infiltrates, and where household greywater can be diverted. It also involves applying these practices in the public arena; for instance, diverting rainwater from streets to irrigate crop-bearing trees on public land. Rainwater Harvesting’s five chapters walk the reader through principles of rainwater infiltration, using Lancaster’s own projects as case studies. The book’s appendices, which have been further developed in this new, colour edition, offer another incredibly valuable resource. They describe, for instance, patterns of water and sediment flow and how to best utilize them; traditional Southwestern rainwater harvesting techniques; a list of plants and their water requirements, and information on the water-energy-carbon nexus and how domestic rainwater harvesting saves energy and money, while reducing CO2 emissions. In short, any household or community committed to living sustainably by conserving and recycling water should read this book.

IN THE HYDRO-SPHERE

We are pleased to share the GIZ Learning Brief: ‘Anchoring Ecosystem-based Adaptation in Networks, Policies and Sectors’. This publication’s reporting on Integrated Water Resource Management will be of particular interest to those involved in catchment-scale rainwater harvesting.

Other recently published, valuable resources for our rainwater harvesting community include:

The World Resource Institute’s newly updated Aqueduct Water Risk Analysis, that allows water risks (c.f. floods and droughts) to be mapped and water stressed areas to be identified.

UN Water’s National Systems to Support Drinking-Water, Sanitation and Hygiene: Global Status Report 2019.

Liquid Harvests

 

Would you let raindrops run off

your land, with a gush

or plant them as golden plums?

 

Would you let puddles evaporate

or convert them to nectar

and invite bees to feast giddily?

 

 

Should storm winds blow leaves

from apple trees, for hedgehogs to nest,

or slam their blasts

against your window panes?

 

Who plants green shade better

than the freely falling rain?

 Forthcoming Conferences

Join IRHA at the 2019 International Water Association (IWA) Water and Development Congress and Exhibition (1-5 December 2019, Colombo, Sri Lanka).

We will also be presenting our pilot projects at the Geneva Forum’s, 8th International Conference on Rights of Nature for Peace and Sustainable Development (9-13 December 2019, United Nations Organization, Geneva).

 

Funding Opportunities

Funding for socio-environmental projects in North Africa: Egypt, Jordan, Libya, Morocco, Tunisia and Palestine is currently being offered by the Fondation Drosos

Funding for projects in Benin is available from the U.S. Embassy in Benin. Their Humanitarian Assistance Program offers grants for water sanitation projects.

International Rainwater Harvesting Alliance

IEH 2, Ch. de Balexert 9, 1219, Châtelaine - Genève

Tel +41 22 797 41 57 secretariat@irha-h2o.org

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