Permeable Surfaces 

Many beautiful and innovative strategies exist for infiltrating water through parking lots and driveways. Different paving systems provide different multi-use opportunities, allowing parking areas to double as patio space, park land, and habitat. Parking lots and driveways can improve rather than degrade our public space with thoughtful, community-minded ecological design.

Permeable surfaces can include interlocking pavers, decomposed granite, pervious concrete and asphalt, grid systems, and other hard surfaces that allow water to infiltrate.

Rain Barrels, Cisterns,
& Drywells

Rain Barrels (typically 55-90 gallons) are often placed under downspouts to collect rain from roofs for use in the landscape. Connecting two or more barrels will increase your storage capacity.

Cisterns are larger storage units (more than 200 gallons) which can be located above or below ground in residential, industrial, or municipal settings. Homeowners will likely need a permit (and professional help) to install a cistern.

A Dry Well typically consists of a buried drain pipe underneath a downspout that carries water to an underground holding container which then percolates the water into the soil. Drywells can increase the functionality and capacity of other stormwater capture systems. 

Notched Curbs

When it rains, urban streets run like rivers, carrying precious water away to the ocean. Notched Curbs or 'Curb Cuts' help us harvest that water in place by allowing runoff to percolate into street-side bioswales and rain gardens. These simple solutions not only bring beauty to our streets, they also keep our rivers and beaches clean while cooling our neighborhoods through healthy tree canopy and vegetation.

Notched Curbs allow our streets to function as integrated parts of the watershed, restoring some of the functions of natural river floodplains: capturing, cleaning, and restoring groundwater supplies. They lay the foundation for multi-benefit gardens that support pollinators, people, or both.

Greywater

Greywater is lightly used water from bathroom sinks, showers, bathtubs, and laundry machines that is still clean enough to use for landscape irrigation. Altering household plumbing to direct this water into the landscape allows us to get more out of this precious resource, and to save on landscape irrigation costs. 

California allows homeowners to reuse laundry water to irrigate landscapes without going through a permitting process.  In a typical California home, laundry accounts for 20% of indoor water use. Greywater can be compatible with edible landscapes, and is perfect for watering fruit trees.

Purple Pipe Irrigation

Purple Pipe refers to 'recycled water', or 'reclaimed water'. It is sewage water that has been filtered for solids and cleaned of some impurities. Although currently not suitable for drinking, recycled water can be used in the landscape. In cities, it is typically used to irrigate landscapes like cemetaries, golf courses, or large parks. 

In our arid climate, use of recycled water reduces the need for imported water. This means using less water from our rivers, streams, and groundwater basins.