Tucson Opinion: Bringing Back Neighborhood History Through Rainwater Harvesting | Local editorials and opinion

The resulting landscapes will never look like well-tended golf courses, that is not in their nature. However, they will become rich, diverse biological communities with their native soils, velvet mesquites and associated native plants, insects, and other wildlife that look and function ecologically similar to what they did before they were destroyed and destroyed.

In order to bring such ecosystems back into our landscapes, however, a change in aesthetic appreciation and the way in which we maintain our courtyards is required.

Courtyards freed from native plants (which are considered “weeds”) and replaced by well-tended, blown gravel, combined with individual, isolated and heavily pruned shrubs, do not support water protection, as is generally assumed.

Sun-drenched, hot gravel, without mulch or organic plant material, promotes the rapid evaporation of rainwater. Heavily pruned plants provide less shade and require more water. This deadly combination reduces the penetration of rainwater into the soil. This also affects the movement of water through the soil into the waterways, while at the same time using more groundwater for landscaping.

The beauty of the challenges our streams and rivers face, especially the Corbett Irrigation Ditch and its associated Mesquite communities, is that while people are concerned about the problems of sinking water levels, reducing surface runoff, and the resulting loss of mesquite forests are responsible, but humans can also be responsible for solving the same problems.

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