Native New Mexican here. Rainwater collection is more nuanced than this article suggests. Water that runs off a roof of a building isn't "wasted." It typically drains into an aquifer or a river. This is well-known in Tucson, a city that pumped so much groundwater that the Santa Cruz river dried up decades ago. [1]<p>There are also legal ramifications. In New Mexico, it's not clear whether rainwater collection is legal. [2] The water falling on your property could be somebody else's water under the doctrine of prior appropriation.<p>[1] <a href="https://www.tucsonweekly.com/tucson/a-river-ran-through-it/Content?oid=1068331" rel="nofollow">https://www.tucsonweekly.com/tucson/a-river-ran-through-it/C...</a><p>[2] <a href="http://www.inkstain.net/fleck/2011/07/rainwater-harvesting-in-new-mexico/" rel="nofollow">http://www.inkstain.net/fleck/2011/07/rainwater-harvesting-i...</a>
Rather than subsidizing this or that conservation solution, wouldn't it be better to charge a price for water that reflects the actual cost of depleting the aquifer? Like shipping water in from elsewhere?<p>Water is another tragedy of the commons. Government often charges for the cost of piping the water from the source, as if the water source had no value itself.<p>Imagine if fish could be taken from the ocean for just the cost of taking it from the ocean. Oh, wait. That's what we do! And overfishing is also another tragedy of the commons in many populations.<p>It would be better if a water source was turned into a for-profit corporation with the all the users of the aquifer each entitled to a share of the profits based on past usage. Then they'd break even if they keep their usage the same, but profit if they cut their usage. New residents and companies would pay the market price for anything more than personal use, which nobody would have to pay for.<p>It would have to cover all the users of the aquifer. Otherwise, those with cheap access to it will profit at everybody else's expense.<p>That way, the people keep the water, nobody has to pay for personal use, but everybody has a built in incentive to avoid uses of water that aren't worth using up the valuable resource.
I'm always interested in how and why things are designed. The article highlights a simple+cheaper way of putting trees in a parking lot at Target that as far as I can tell wasn't previously done because it's likely the designs were done in a different climate.
This is fantastic. When I lived in one of the southern states of India—where water scarcity is a real problem—the government made it mandatory to have rainwater harvesting systems installed in all government and residential buildings. This happened in the year 2001. Since they didn't follow the incentive model like in Tuscon, there was some resistance initially. However, it took off—albeit grudgingly—and a plethora of 10 and 15 year studies proved that the scheme singularly altered the water table in most parts of the state avoiding potential droughts.<p>I don't understand why any region that faces water scarcity doesn't simply make it a necessity.
I'm really digging this WaterDeeply website by the way. Lots of interesting topics I've been slowly researching in the background over time. Looks like they have pretty informative interviews, nice clean writing style too.
when I arrived in Phoenix, it took me a while to understand what was wrong with the roofs here: often there is no gutter.<p>other oddity: some people water the lawn by simply flooding it (some front lawns are specifically lower than the sidewalk for that). At first I though it was stupid, then I saw people "watering" their lawn with sprinklers in the middle of the afternoon. I am curious what ratio of the water even reaches the grass.