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  • From: "Lawrence F. London, Jr." <lflj@intrex.net>
  • To: permaculture <permaculture@lists.ibiblio.org>
  • Subject: Re: [permaculture] Rainwater harvesting pond story
  • Date: Mon, 10 Aug 2009 16:28:43 -0400

Suraj Kumar wrote:
Hi Guys,

On our tiny acreage farm (1.86 acres), we recently finished building a
3 stepped 3825 sq.ft. sized pond with a max depth of 22 ft. We had
three goals:

1. Store water for irrigation needs during the dry-seasons (post
monsoon and then pre-monsoon)
2. Conserve the constructed pits / wells / dams / hedges / whatever
structure
3. Storing run-away water / Retrieving stored water must be doable
using as little energy as possible

We rented out a backhoe excavator (JCB-3CX) and two tipper tractors
for this job.

http://wiki.sunson.in/rain_water_harvesting explains the design in
terms of satisfying these above three goals.

Please feel free to let out your comments!

Cheers,

-Suraj

Fascinating. Why the stepped shape of the excavation? I imagine all the vertical sides will collapse and become 45 degree slopes as nearly always happens (unless the clay soil is real firm). Why not a pond with greater surface area
and much more gradual slopes down to the deepest section? This options (I would think) makes it possible for shallow water dwelling creatures, shallow water aquatic plants (ow which there are many, i.e. cattails, papyrus, etc)
and possibly mussels and crustaceans for food.





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