At an animal sanctuary, nonprofit in Portugal, the livestock stables get flooded with standing water when it rains. The wet season has started so they are looking for emergency solutions. This week they are going to dig swales with a machine and fill it with compost and then put soil on top with a finished depth of 1.5 feet. They are adding compost because they want to grow trees there one day. Composted manure would also add porosity to the otherwise clay soil. And the swales (yellow lines) would direct towards two retention basins. Also, the organization doesn’t have much money to buy materials.
Because the area is bare soil and establishing vegetation, geotextiles, high terraces is not possible with six goats, 2 donkeys, and 4 pigs what are options to stabilize the swales, besides rocks on the swale edges?
I'm thinking that making homemade diversion structures with wood stakes to hold low walls of debris like logs, sticks, biomass could also be worth trying.
I'm open to any thoughts.
