Geoff Lawton's "Regreening the Urban Streetscape" video now live!

Geoff interviews Brad Lancaster of Tucson, AZ, water harvesting guru and author of Rainwater Harvesting for Drylands and Beyond Vol 1 and 2 in this video.

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It's pretty amazing what has happened in Tucson over the past 20 years. What started as a small effort has grown to include policy in Tucson and is now slowly infiltrating in Phoenix (the 6th largest city in the US and largest hot arid city in N. America). Lately I've been sitting in on meetings with the Phoenix City Council on "Complete Streets" as a representative for the stormwater harvesting aspect of the streets (green infrastructure). The Council's recommendations are nearing completion and will be sent to various departments as soon as this summer.

This type of work, while it may not look like much to those in more humid climates, is critical for those of us in urban deserts. The added load of vehicle emissions and industrial contaminants paired with lack of vegetation, can make urban deserts particularly prone to health hazards. Plus the paving over of soils with asphalt and cement means that we have vastly increased our urban heat island effect (UHI). These hard surfaces, if they are not shaded, absorb heat all day long and release it in the cooler temperatures at night - creating "higher lows". What does higher lows look like? Well, so far Phoenix holds the record for the highest low for an August day in 2013 where the LOW temperature was 96F/36C. They say we will break that record this year and have a night where it does not fall below 100F/38C. Remember, that is our "cool nighttime temperature" not the high for the day...

If you're interested in learning more about water harvesting for drylands, Watershed Management Group, also of Tucson, AZ, offers a 9-day intensive certification program that is extremely worthwhile. Yes - you get a lot of hands-on practice too! Brad Lancaster is one of the instructors and yes! you get to visit his homesite and neighborhood where much of the footage for this film was taken.

Trying to find the video, the website in the link is gone.  If anyone knows, please reply with link.

The videos and that website are no longer available. You can find Geoff Lawton's videos here. And of course, on his youtube channel.

I've been looking for those videos from his old site....I can't find any of them, please share if you've found em. I really liked those videos and I hope they put them back up.

Here are some of the videos:  https://vimeo.com/user2553348

Thanks Tyler. I always seem to forget about Vimeo. And it appears that there are quite a few videos I haven't seen yet.😃

Here is the link: https://vimeo.com/168769064

I wrote to the organization, and they sent it.

Is there any way to patch the original email with the new correct link, where it says, Full Version?

It would make it so much easier for people just stopping in.

Done! The FULL VERSION link now goes to the vimeo video.