# Best way to produce and store Water in a Desert?



## PreppingFabricator (Mar 30, 2020)

As any fellow desert dweller will know well, Drought is a big problem down here and our only sources of freshwater would be an aquafer or a river. It doesn't rain too terribly much in a desert either, so I'm wondering if there were any reliable ways to produce, store, And purify water in an urban environment?


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## Camel923 (Aug 13, 2014)

I would suggest a cistern. Underground it will be cool, not evaporate. Just need a lot of roof to catch the little run off you get and see that it flows in there.


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## paraquack (Mar 1, 2013)

So, PrepFab, (and I thought my handle was long), where you at? I'm in Tucson area. 
I catch rain water off the roof for my garden. I also picked up some of the really big 
plastic tarps to spread out to catch additional rain if necessary. I need to create a 
raised border undert the tarp but can collect a fair amount of rain. My house is at 
the bottom of two streets, where rain water runs into the wash. My plan is to dam 
up the run off and use my DC pump to collect the water. Plus I have mapped out 
every pool in a 10 block square area.


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## Inor (Mar 22, 2013)

I am not in an urban environment, but I am in the desert. We just have a well with a 1500 gallon, above ground storage tank. I am guessing you city will not let you drill a well in the middle of the city, but tanks like ours can be purchased moderately economically (figure about $1 per gallon of storage) at Home Depot or Tractor Supply. Could you put something like in your yard (maybe hide from the neighbors so they do not complain) and fill it from your city water or rainwater?

As for purification, get a Berkey for drinking water.

https://gameplanexperts.com/products/big-berkey-system-with-9-super-sterasyl-ceramic-filters-2-25-gal?variant=18409885466691&gclid=EAIaIQobChMI_di5mKzB6AIVEqvsCh3LZQ4TEAQYBCABEgK8I_D_BwE

As I mentioned, we are on well water and it is a deep well - 540 feet. But even though we have 540 feet of rock naturally filtering our water, we still run our drinking water through a Berkey. It will work equally well on rain water.


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## paulag1955 (Dec 15, 2019)

Homesteadonomics is a fantastic YouTube channel. If you search through his videos, you should find at least a few on rainwater cachement.


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## PreppingFabricator (Mar 30, 2020)

paraquack said:


> So, PrepFab, (and I thought my handle was long), where you at? I'm in Tucson area.
> I catch rain water off the roof for my garden. I also picked up some of the really big
> plastic tarps to spread out to catch additional rain if necessary. I need to create a
> raised border undert the tarp but can collect a fair amount of rain. My house is at
> ...


New Mexico, not as consistently hot as Arizona but dry as all hell. I'm in Bernalillo county. The weather is very inconsistent here and given how grid reliant we are here id have to research the legality of rain-catching. I also live with my family who thinks prepping is "Pretty stupid" so I doubt they'll let me catch rainwater even if it was completely legal, But hey, if it is and I pay for it my family probably won't care much unless I add a permanent system in their yard, LOL


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## PreppingFabricator (Mar 30, 2020)

Inor said:


> I am not in an urban environment, but I am in the desert. We just have a well with a 1500 gallon, above ground storage tank. I am guessing you city will not let you drill a well in the middle of the city, but tanks like ours can be purchased moderately economically (figure about $1 per gallon of storage) at Home Depot or Tractor Supply. Could you put something like in your yard (maybe hide from the neighbors so they do not complain) and fill it from your city water or rainwater?
> 
> As for purification, get a Berkey for drinking water.
> 
> ...


Yeah, I've been thinking about getting a Berkley when I can reasonably afford to and filling it with city water. Where I live is very bad about their grid dependency, so I'm gonna have to do responsible research on catching rainwater.


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## paulag1955 (Dec 15, 2019)

PreppingFabricator said:


> Yeah, I've been thinking about getting a Berkley when I can reasonably afford to and filling it with city water. Where I live is very bad about their grid dependency, so I'm gonna have to do responsible research on catching rainwater.


There are more affordable alternatives to Berkey. I ordered an Alexapure and am anxiously awaiting it's arrival, but there are other brands. Propur is one that comes to mind.


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## PreppingFabricator (Mar 30, 2020)

paulag1955 said:


> There are more affordable alternatives to Berkey. I ordered an Alexapure and am anxiously awaiting it's arrival, but there are other brands. Propur is one that comes to mind.


Oh yeah? I might have to check those out then. thanks for the recommendations!


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