Harvesting standing water

Hallelujah, it's raining!!!

Where I live, in Spain, has a rainfall of around 600mm per year.  We haven't had any 'real' rain for months.  Today it's hurling down after a spectacular thunderstorm last night.

My food forest is drinking up the water (yeyy!) but around the house we have an enormous concrete slab.  I'm in the process of covering it with gravel for aesthetic reasons.

We gather water in trugs and buckets, and are hoping to install guttering this year, but the rain that isn't 'caught' ends up lying on the concrete slab until the sun dries it out.  

Do you have any ideas as to how I can harvest, or redirect this precious resource, without resorting to breaking up the concrete (maybe one day, but not now)?  It seems criminal to waste it when we get so little!

Thank you in advance hive mind!

Helen, in regards to the water on the slab, does the water arrive there straight down from the sky only? Or does it arrive from other directions also, for example runoff from the roof, runoff from a hill, slight slope or driveway?

Angela Wilcox wrote:Helen, in regards to the water on the slab, does the water arrive there straight down from the sky only? Or does it arrive from other directions also, for example runoff from the roof, runoff from a hill, slight slope or driveway?

Hi Angela,  almost all is straght from the sky!

The Devil is always in the details.  If the water is running off the concrete, you may wish to install guttering around the edges that empties into a buried tank.   Water that pools on the concrete is more of a challenge.   I know this goes against your wishes, but the best bet would be to install a drain at that location that drains into a tank.  

Multiple pooling locations leads to a potentially significant headache.   A temporary, and questionable approach, might be to cover the concrete with plastic sheeting prior to a storm and direct the flow to a collection area such as a tank.  Frankly, I don’t have a great deal of faith in this approach.

Maybe a simple siphon? This guy shows how he gets rain water off his pool cover. Perhaps your lower end could be drained into a few 5 gallon buckets?


If the water isn't deep enough for a garden hose, consider using aquarium hoseing.

John F Dean wrote:The Devil is always in the details.  If the water is running off the concrete, you may wish to install guttering around the edges that empties into a buried tank.   Water that pools on the concrete is more of a challenge.   I know this goes against your wishes, but the best bet would be to install a drain at that location that drains into a tank.  

Multiple pooling locations leads to a potentially significant headache.   A temporary, and questionable approach, might be to cover the concrete with plastic sheeting prior to a storm and direct the flow to a collection area such as a tank.  Frankly, I don’t have a great deal of faith in this approach.

Thank you John, you've confirmed my suspicions that eventually the concreted area is going to need a major overhaul, as we have multiple areas of pooling.  Unfortunately, as it's a rare occurrence, it's not top of our priorities to sort out, but I think the underground tanks would be perfect when the time comes.

Joylynn Hardesty wrote:Maybe a simple siphon? This guy shows how he gets rain water off his pool cover. Perhaps your lower end could be drained into a few 5 gallon buckets?

If the water isn't deep enough for a garden hose, consider using aquarium hoseing.

Aha!  I hadn't considered syphoning, that might work!  I have plenty of tubing, so I'll give that a go, many thanks Joylynn!