The Big Idea: For small volumes of water storage, use ferrocement if you can and plastic if you cannot. For large volumes of water storage, use ponds if you can and ferrocement if you cannot.

Design Principles

1. Lease as much of the water work as possible to nature.
2. Divert water just after evaporation or soil has naturally purified it.
3. Divert water higher than the point of storage and points of use.
4. Conserve pressure in the plumbing.
5. Use adequately, but not excessively, sized pipe.
6. Design to extract benefit from other attributes of your water.
7. Rigorously confine materials that are incompatible with natural cycles. 
8. Intervene as little as possible.
9. Use appropriate technology.
10. Practice moderate and efficient resource use. Context is everything.

Book Notes