A reaction, culturally surviving an ensuing drought was done in the Americas by the Hohokam of the 1400's today's O'odham a surviving Tribe on flood-agriculture, this was after 32-years of drought to bring the decision to abandon the Pueblos so dependent on Salt River water irrigation & corn they could no longer support that many people. The Rapa Nui survived without a year-round stream by dispersing upon the landscape and using porosity not dams to use water as did the Inca, the Rapa Nui didn't settle into cities the Hohokam did. The message from both surviving cultures to avoid centralization, avoid dams and capture what comes when it comes storing it in the watershed flow for agriculture and cisterns for people & animals. To do this use ballast-rock cisterns, used in road-building it's 40% voids for water volume capacity lined with muds-clays, sand & gravels between the rocks and capped with clays to prevent evaporation to fill when it rain or snow falls. Making these to hold acre-feet of water is possible on a 1/2-acre of land. Thus living and farming become catchment-area & storage-capacity on a yearly basis and when the water falls is whenever it falls to cope with varying rain patterns already seen globally. hth, tom
Published by Tom Mallard, Living Systems, Industrial-Architectural Design
A reaction, culturally surviving an ensuing drought was done in the Americas by the Hohokam of the 1400's today's O'odham a surviving Tribe on flood-agriculture, this was after 32-years of drought to bring the decision to abandon the Pueblos so dependent on Salt River water irrigation & corn they could no longer support that many people.
The Rapa Nui survived without a year-round stream by dispersing upon the landscape and using porosity not dams to use water as did the Inca, the Rapa Nui didn't settle into cities the Hohokam did.
The message from both surviving cultures to avoid centralization, avoid dams and capture what comes when it comes storing it in the watershed flow for agriculture and cisterns for people & animals.
To do this use ballast-rock cisterns, used in road-building it's 40% voids for water volume capacity lined with muds-clays, sand & gravels between the rocks and capped with clays to prevent evaporation to fill when it rain or snow falls.
Making these to hold acre-feet of water is possible on a 1/2-acre of land.
Thus living and farming become catchment-area & storage-capacity on a yearly basis and when the water falls is whenever it falls to cope with varying rain patterns already seen globally.
hth, tom
The Rapa Nui survived without a year-round stream by dispersing upon the landscape and using porosity not dams to use water as did the Inca, the Rapa Nui didn't settle into cities the Hohokam did.
The message from both surviving cultures to avoid centralization, avoid dams and capture what comes when it comes storing it in the watershed flow for agriculture and cisterns for people & animals.
To do this use ballast-rock cisterns, used in road-building it's 40% voids for water volume capacity lined with muds-clays, sand & gravels between the rocks and capped with clays to prevent evaporation to fill when it rain or snow falls.
Making these to hold acre-feet of water is possible on a 1/2-acre of land.
Thus living and farming become catchment-area & storage-capacity on a yearly basis and when the water falls is whenever it falls to cope with varying rain patterns already seen globally.
hth, tom