For starters, take a look around your home. Take notes about things where the water drains off from the roof, where the storm drains are on your street, whether water runs directly from your yard into a stream. How much of your yard is lawn, and where are any trees or gardens? When did you fertilize your lawn, and did you apply any pesticides or herbicides? Did you do this before it rained, or during a dry spell? Did you use mulch, manure, or other things to improve the soil without using chemicals? Have you tested the soil, and do you use the results of the soil test to determine how much you have to fertilize your lawn? Do you have any pests that cause problems? How often do you water your yard? Do you have problems with erosion or soil loss? Make notes of all these activities and use this information to develop your plan. The next step is to ask how all of this affects the streams near your yard or the run-off that leaves your yard and goes down a storm drain to the river. For example, do you use any insecticides or herbicides that might pollute the water? Do you use fertilizer that can add nutrients to run-off? These extra nutrients and chemicals are a major problem in Kansas, and cause algae blooms that can pollute drinking water and kill fish. Click here for nutrient lesson While lawns definitely absorb more water than cement or asphalt, lawns do not absorb as much rain as plants that have deep roots. To see how fertilizer can be washed off of a lawn into stormwater run-off click here. Make a diagram or map of your yard. Make sure you include any ponds, streams, or other water bodies that might be impacted by your your activities, and indicate where the run-off that leaves your land goes during a storm (including storm drains). Do you see any erosion that would indicate excessive run-off? Once you have described
how you are currently managing your yard, you can identify potential
problems that you would like to improve. This will be the basis for
picking one problem to remedy in your project. You should make sure that
the problem that you pick is something that is within your control to
change, and that it is the right size for you to manage. You can reduce run-off by minimizing the amount of water that you apply, which has the added benefit of reducing the amount of water that is withdrawn from groundwater or the river. Paying special attention to how you are watering (for example, using drip irrigation or a soaking hose, watering early in the morning) and the ability of your soil to absorb and hold water (using mulch, improving your soil with humus) will help you grow healthy plants with less water. You can also reduce run-off by improving on-site water retention using things like buffer strips, rain gardens, wetlands, terraces and ponds. Water that is absorbed into the soil is used by soil organisms and plants, which remove nutrients and many chemicals, making the water less polluted by the time it goes into groundwater or streams. Here are a few suggestions about what you can do to decrease run-off from your home, yard and driveway:
The key principles are:
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