I impounded many thousands of gallons of
water on my old Georgia homestead, all for the price of a few pieces of heavy builders' plastic from Home Depot/Lowe's. The basic idea is to make a big basket. One time I made a ring of metal pipes driven into the ground and wove peeled saplings between them....which was tedious and didn't last very long; and then the later 4 cisterns I made with metal farm stakes and field
fence or chain link or whatever I could scrounge. Put the
fence on the inside of the stakes and wire it well to them. Put some stout wire or cable around the outside of the tops of the stakes. Then make what the
permaculture literature calls a "carpet sandwich" inside the basket.....basically overlapping pieces of scrap carpet, then the piece of new plastic, and then more carpet on the inside, weighted down and tied to the stakes/fence along the top so it doesn't float around. Silt fence, old tarps, fabrics, etc. can be used instead.....the point is to protect the plastic from punctures and sunlight. These cisterns were quick to put up (a few days), dirt cheap, and lasted at least five years. Rig a siphon system to get the water out since you don't want to puncture the plastic layer.....
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