I am a rain farmer. Mine is the easiest job in the world. Every human needs to drink about 180 gallons of water each year. Uncountable gallons of pure rainwater fall from the sky every day. My job, and that of all rain farmers, is simply to extend a grateful hand and receive the bountiful harvest. Rainwater is a resource freely given to all. A RainCatcher harvesting structure can be set up in a day, at minimal cost, using whatever materials are at hand.

There are many ways to catch the rain. Any existing structure (house, school, medical clinic, factory, office building, train station, market, etc.) when retrofitted with rain gutters, plastic tarps on rooftops, and rain barrels, becomes a RainCatcher. In this way, each structure can be converted into a rainwater factory, ready to provide thousands of gallons of clean drinking water. Ordinary citizens become rain farmers.

Along with turning existing buildings into RainCatchers, free standing tent-like structures can be erected wherever a new source of drinking water is needed. The following description illustrates how to build a RainCatcher. Though there are countless ways to catch rain, one central theme applies to all models: Set up a roof structure for rain to fall on, then channel the water into containers for storage.

Materials Needed :

-tent poles
-plenty of rope
-tent stakes (steel or wood spikes)
-tent covering (tarps made from local materials)
-rolls of clear plastic sheeting
-water storage tanks (plastic containers suitable for storing drinking water- from 50 to 1,500 gallons)
-chlorine and/or iodine tablets (if necessary)

Many RainCatcher tents can be set up at key locations around a village or town. For however long the rainy season lasts, these simple rain water collection plants catch and store thousands of gallons of the purest drinking water available on the planet. With a consistent, reusable supply of storage containers, enough water can be caught and stored to last a community from one rainy season to the next. In full, opaque containers, water can be stored for an entire dry season. Chlorine and iodine tablets are readily available to add to any barrels that my have become contaminated by airborne/dust-borne bacteria.

This description is for a square shaped RainCatcher tent (click DIAGRAMS to see sketches)Through experimentation, any shape or size can be adapted to the requirements of site and use. For example, if a single 1000gal water tank is available, tarps can be attached to the top of the tank and rise outward and upward to perimeter poles, creating a big funnel to channel rainfall into the single storage tank. Another example : set up safari-type canopies and place rain barrels around the edges.With any RainCatcher, the bigger the tent surface area, the faster the storage containers will be filled.

The only limit to how much rain water can be collected and stored is how many tent structures can be erected and how many storage containers can be rounded up.

I grew up along the coast of California with a mountain range, the Sierra Nevada, in my back yard. I was blessed to live in a place where every year, like clockwork, moisture would float in from the Pacific, hit the Sierra, and drop an abundance of rain and snow. These same mountains would store all this water in the frozen state for half a year or so, then release it one drop at a time all throughout the long, dry season.

This reliable water supply visits most every corner of the world, year after year. For those billions who are chronically thirsty, all that's missing is a means to catch, store and distribute each seasons' rainfall. Thanks to our Sierra, California has never been a level playing field.

With the RainCatcher project I aim to bring the mountains to the people, tilting the playing field in their favor. There is no limit to how much clean drinking water can be caught, stored and enjoyed.

Every half hour I get thirsty, reach for the ever present bottle of water and take a few healthy gulps. Forty-eight drinks of water each day, times 365 = 180 gallons a year. Meanwhile, a couple billion other people are unable to practice this basic ritual.

Have you ever caught and tasted rainwater? I don’t know why, but every time the rain comes I set up a primitive catchment system and start drinking rainwater. It’s an elixir. In a single storm I extend my cup and receive more than I could drink in a lifetime. Uncountable gallons of fresh drinking water are bestowed upon us daily.

Over the past few years, while catching and drinking rainwater, I have figured out how the increasing billions who go thirsty can also catch, store and enjoy clean drinking water year 'round.

To fulfill it’s design a car needs fire, a boat, an airplane, train, each needs fire to move through the world. When the car ceases to run and the airplane is de-commissioned, the boat mothballed, it’s because the fire is gone. We call this death. Same goes for us, we die when our fire goes out. So, for as long as we’re here, we need fire to move through the world. When we catch fire there is unlimited energy, unlimited creativity, unlimited resources. Pierre Teilhard de Chadin said it this way :

'Some day, after we have mastered the winds, the tides, and gravity we shall harness the energies of love. Then for a second time in the history of the world we will have discovered fire'.

My ‘Catching Rain’ presentations always begin and end with a conversation about the importance of ‘catching fire’. If we catch fire, water will be plentiful, new opportunities and possibilities will suddenly become obvious, and we will have the energy to implement new solutions to old problems.

Cebu watersheds remain at risk - Philippines

“We, concerned Cebuanos, living under the same serious threat knowing that hardly 40 percent of Metro Cebu’s population is served with potable water system and considering the degraded condition of our watersheds and aquifers, have banded together...to arrest the trend of overstepping the threshold limits of water sustainability,” CUSW members said.

They pointed out that the key to economic and social progress is water.

Formed in January 1995, CUSW comprises national government agencies, local government units and business, academe, women, youth, upland residents, farmers, fisherfolk, landowners, professional, urban poor, nongovernment and people’s organizations.

The alliance has been lobbying for the protection and proper management of legally protected watersheds in central Cebu, as well as other water sources, to ensure sustainable water.

It is also helping the Cebu City Government improve an ordinance on rainwater collection as a way to conserve water resources.

Alingasa noted that many people are still apathetic to problems affecting water sources, which include pollution.

“It seems that all efforts ...devoted by CUSW to increase awareness about these situations amount to only ‘a drop in the ocean’, “ he said. “We still have a huge and difficult challenge to awaken people from their complacent attitude towards the creeping water crisis.”

"If there is a simple technology that could help address the shortage of water supply haunting millions of households and farms, it is rainwater harvesting."
Water problem? Harvesting rainwater can help address shortage