Applied Watershed Restoration at Quail Springs Permaculture.  Nov. 27 - Dec. 1, 2012

Join us for the first Applied Watershed Restoration course to be held at Quail Springs Permaculture.  The setting for this course is perfect and will provide unique opportunities to understand how watershed-scale natural processes interact with water harvesting earthworks.  We will have the opportunity to investigate the effects of a very large flood that occurred a couple of years ago.  This recent watershed-scale event changed the rules for water harvesting  at Quail Springs.  The rare event provides the opportunity to evaluate the challenge of designing systems that can survive weather extremes in the face of climate change.  The course will be instructed by Craig Sponholtz of Dryland Solutions and special guest Owen Habutzel, who will be teaching a one day Keyline short course.  

We will discuss a variety of common and uncommon water harvesting solutions and how they interact or at times can interrupt natural systems.  We will cover erosion control solutions that not only stop erosion, but also harvest runoff and build soil.  We will dsicuss how to grow food and habitat in the same place.  Learn to identify and utilize the most productive parts of your landscape and how to harmoniously integrate those areas with your infrastructure. 

If your water harvesting system isn't good for the watershed, how can it be good for you?

After this class, you will start to look at the true ecological and hydrological cost of moving water around the landscape to fit our needs.  It can be done responsibly, but that requires us to look beyond our fencelines and at the rest of the ecosystem. The course will empahasize the development of landscape assessment skills that are absolutely necessary to design effective and resilient water harvesting systems that increase productivity and ecosystem services.  Gain skills that will help you to recognize signs of ecological degradation and regeneration, then learn how to apply that knowledge to water harvesting and watershed restoration design.  This is the really big picture of water harvesting that connects us to the health of the watershed as a whole and you won't get this information anywhere else!