Trees & surface storage of water

From: Donald Z Osborn (osborndo@PILOT.MSU.EDU)
Date: Fri Jan 28 2000 - 11:19:05 CST

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    Message-ID:  <200001281719.MAA17744@pilot004.cl.msu.edu>
Date:         Fri, 28 Jan 2000 12:19:05 -0500
From: Donald Z Osborn <mailto:osborndo@PILOT.MSU.EDU>
Subject:      Trees & surface storage of water
To: mailto:DEVEL-L@LISTSERV.AMERICAN.EDU

    <pre> Surface storage of collected / harvested rainwater in arid climates is obviously less expensive than storage in tanks or cisterns, and offers easier access to water than drawing / pumping from wells. However, water loss due to evaporation is likely to be high. Has any work been done on use of trees for windbreaks and shade in order to reduce direct sun, air temperatures, and wind velocity and thus decrease losses from evaporation?

    Presumably since trees in proximity to a retention pond might effectively pump a significant amount of water out of it (and probably no amount of micro-climate effect could reduce evaporation enough to overcome the amount taken up & transpired by the plants) one would also have to be talking about lining the pond somehow to limit infiltration and the pumping effect.

    Thanks in advance!

    Donald Zhang Osborn, Ph.D. mailto:osborndo@pilot.msu.edu consultant mailto:@ NRMP-Assistant-Mali@icrisatml.org ANRM, IK, & ICT in the vernacular mailto:bisharat@go.com

    </pre>

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