A swale to move water from A to B?

Discussion in 'Designing, building, making and powering your life' started by Dobly, Mar 18, 2009.

  1. Dobly

    Dobly Junior Member

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    Re: A swale to move water from A to B?

    Here are the photos...

    This first one shows the idea I discussed with my Permie friend. His idea was the take the level of the first swale from the base of a very sturdy pile of rocks on the erosion repair work the council did.

    The to swale will go from there approximately to the X at the other end of the block. Then a 2nd swale would be added between Y and Z on the lower slope.

    The rocks on the right of the shot he suggested could be pushed down to form the start of the swale. They would be placed over a very bare and rocky patch of ground. (as seen in the 2nd image below)

    [​IMG]

    This next shot it taken a few steps forward from the last shot and shows those rocks in the bottom that would be pushed down to start the swale where the white line is. You can see how bare the ground is here.

    [​IMG]

    This last image is taken from a few more steps forward and shows the rocky ground from which a productive swale will be created. (fingers crossed)

    [​IMG]

    Any thoughts on the feasibility of this plan?

    It is growing so tiring to hear locals say to me "You never grow anything up there". To which I respond, I will if I put a couple of swales in and add tons of organic matter.

    Might take some years but as long as I keep adding to it and growing what I can, I cant see why this cannot be a productive piece of land.

    This block cannot be as tough as the land in that https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sohI6vnWZmk Greening the desert video.
     
  2. Max E

    Max E Junior Member

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    Re: A swale to move water from A to B?

    Have you calculated the volume of water that you have to deal with when you have a heavy rain event? by calculating the catchment area of the road and all the land etc the feeds into the storwater drains of the culdesac then multiply this by the amount of rain you get in a single rainfall event will tell you how much water you are trying to deal with. My guess is A LOT.

    If you divert this to run across more of your property you may end up with more exposed rock slabs where there was once a bit of soil.
    looks to me like you need consider any water diversion very seriously or you will end up causing more damage than you already have.

    Perhaps you could look at controlling the water that goes through the property before you divert any. Make the current water course into a feature of water falls, gabions, pools etc then once that is all under control you can divert some out of the pool at the top as the land needs and can handle it

    regards

    Max
     
  3. MoD

    MoD Junior Member

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    Re: A swale to move water from A to B?

    Max E is spot on.

    I've just installed a swale system that catches road runoff and just a little rain = lots o water.
    To the point where you start wishing for a drought...

    My setup takes the water off the road, into a 40-50 foot trench with a ~2 foot drop.
    Into a small catch pond that then over flows into the top swale.
    Each swale is connected to the next swale via a swale like channel (i.e swale run east-west and the connecting channels run north-south)

    With a 2" rain I could have run a micro-hydro power generator.

    I'm seeing a lot of erosion just below the level sills due to the volume of water.

    I'm fixing this by adding a gabion before the holding pond (backfloods the trench from the street)
    and adding more gabions to the channels that connect the swales. Which should give me more backflooding.
    Also adding a overflow channel to the holding pond that is higher than the swale. This should let the excess high water skip the swale
    and reduce the water flow.

    It's a bit tricky as swales are meant to hold and soak water not move it.
    You want to slow the water down to a crawl across your property.

    As to the swales. Topsoil on the front mound side and the back side of the mound can be brush/bio mass with your rocky 'soil'.
    Neat trick (haven't tried it yet) is to toss a bit of concrete on the brush then wet a little then add the 'soil'.
    The cement will collect on top of the brush and create 'tunnels' for air/water/etc. Think reinforced earth worms tunnels.

    Will try and post some pics later.

    Hope your swales go well.
    D
     
  4. Flying Binghi

    Flying Binghi Junior Member

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    Re: A swale to move water from A to B?

    Dobly, re the pictures in your previous post - are those fire burn marks on the trees ?
     
  5. Dobly

    Dobly Junior Member

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    Re: A swale to move water from A to B?

    Yes.. Looks to me like fire went through there.. Not sure if it was controlled backburning or a bush fire. Either way, it happened before we bought the land so I suspect it will happen again some day. I'll be taking that into consideration when planning the house and sprinkler system around it.
     

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