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The people from the new water paradigm in the first part of their webinar. Starts about 6 mins in.

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Sustainable Design Masterclass - Rain for Climate

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Sustainable Design Masterclass - Rain for Climate

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Strategies for restoring small water cycles

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Rain For Climate Part 2: Reversing Sea Level Rise and Global Climate Cooling

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This is the second webinar held by Rain for Climate will Michal Kravcik, Jan Pokorny and Vlado Zaujec reveal the actual planned implementation steps for stabilization of the global climate by restoring the small water cycles locally. 
In 2007, Hydrologists Michal Kravcik, Jan Pokorny, Juraj Kohutiar, Martin Kovac, and Eugene Toth released their book "Water for the Recovery of the Climate" which gathered decades of hydrological research and projects to show a mindblowing truth: that we could quickly, and cheaply restore global climate stability by restoring our water cycles. Over the last 10 years, Kravcik and his team have been gathering scientists, ecologists, hydrologists, entrepreneurs, and government agencies to create a plan to restore ecosystem stability worldwide. They formed an organization called "Rain for Climate".

Vlado, Michael and Jan are going to show you...
 
·         A global overview of the problems and promise of restoring watersheds worldwide.
·         Explanation of why it stopped rain in some areas and possibilities to reverse this trend.
·         How different country types impacts the climate
·         Real life events explanation – Cyprus, Athens, Cape Town
·         Correlation of rising sea levels and spreading desertification.
·         The role of water and carbon in the atmosphere, the power of carbon sequestration in ecosystems, the relationship between land management and carbon emissions in the atmosphere (root cause vs. indicator)
·         Lessons learned from multiple projects and how they influenced design of the Rain for Climate.
·         Explanation of the disruptive model behind the Rain for Climate movement.
·         Implementation plan to recover the climate and reverse sea level rise
·         Messaging
·         Expected effects of massive water restoration program
·         How you can help carry out the vision for Rain for Climate worldwide and recover your climate

Learn more at: https://www.rainforclimate.com/en/science-behind

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More Lost Ancient High Technology Of Egypt Part

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Building With Hempcrete (hemp + lime).  Pt 1.

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Building With Hempcrete (hemp + lime).  Pt 1.

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More Lost Ancient High Technology Of Egypt Part

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Melbourne is creating roof gardens of rare plants to enhance biodiversity. Great for urban permaculturists.

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Rare plants are finding space on a green roof in Melbourne, Australia. According to the New Scientist: 'it's a case of lofty living meeting Noah's Ark'.

Rare plants are found on green roofs in Europe, especially Orchids. Here on this roof in Switzerland, the rare plants found their own way to the roof. However, a roof in Melbourne is taking the idea a step further by deliberately establishing a specific environment and planting to achieve an oasis for rare wildflowers.

An oasis of rare plants in the sky

For the last six years, Australian conservationists have been growing critically-endangered native plants on the roofs of Melbourne. As is the case elsewhere, intensive agriculture has had an impact on regional wildflower plants. By planting the wildflowers on roofs, they are less prone to predation from invasive invertebrates. Furthermore, their seeds can spread more easily on the wind to surrounding areas at ground level.

Rain-irrigated volcanic soils

Green roof substrates are often created using volcanic material as they need to be light. In Melbourne, the soils were developed to match the growing conditions at ground level, the Victoria Plain being volcanic in character.

Water is an issue in Southern Australia, as it is elsewhere. So, once the plants had established, they were left to be irrigated naturally. This was to raise them to cope with local climate conditions.

Green roofs are an addition to conventional conservation measures

Not all the species grown on Melbourne's roofs flourished - but some did. Obviously, green roofs are no replacement for conservation at ground level. However, if a few important plants can find sanctuary and potentially spread from the roofs, this can only be a good thing. As we have always said at Livingroofs.org, green roofs should always be about more than just stormwater and energy.

Biodiversity is a key benefit that should not be overlooked - and Melbourne is showing how it can be done in a new way.

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The fate of rare plants is in the sky - an Australian Oasis

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Rare plants are finding space on a green roof in Melbourne, Australia. According to the New Scientist: 'it's a case of lofty living meeting Noah's Ark'. Rare plants are found on green roofs in Europe, especially Orchids. Here on this roof in Switzerland, the rare plants found their own way to the roof.

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Escape the treadmill!

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View Slideshow

Many people dream of living off the grid, rent-free - and a select few have turned that dream into a reality. It takes more than just a stack of solar panels and a tiny house though - you need a plan that provides for all of the necessities of daily life. If you've ever wanted to make the leap to off-grid living but weren't sure where to start, we've compiled a step-by-step guide to transitioning to a simpler, more sustainable lifestyle.

READ MORE: Greenmoxie Tiny House lets you live mortgage-free and off-grid in a luxurious 340 sq. ft. on wheels

You can't live off-grid if you have nowhere to live. How you acquire this living space is dependent on your resources and style. Those who seek the thrill of the open road would do best in a self-sufficient mobile home. For the DIY type, building your own, as Elizabeth Pearson did in Spain, might be the challenge you need. For those who are not particularly crafty, a prefabricated model like those sold by Big World Homes or Green Moxie would be more your speed.

READ MORE: Luxurious tiny home lets owner live off-grid and rent-free

If you seek to settle down, think about where you would like to live and why. Are you seeking to abandon civilization entirely or do you simply want to live a more self-sufficient life? Are you willing to pay more for an ideal location near family and friends or are you flexible with your location? If money is not an issue, there are open plots of land even in the world's most expensive real estate markets. If you seek dirt for dirt cheap, you have options.

READ MORE: World's first off-grid Ecocapsule home to hit the market this year, shipping in 2016

Do you want to support the growth of a new community or do you want to join one that already exists? If you are of the apocalyptic mindset, there are plenty of places to hunker down with those who also feel the end is nigh. If you wish to learn from the cutting edge of off-grid experimentation before you dive in, check out communities like the Off-Grid Experimentation Village. Of course, there are always the Earthship communities to learn from and join.

READ MORE: Tiny Off-Grid Hawk House has Soaring Views of the California Mountains

If you want to start your own off-grid community, do some research into establishing a land trust. This institution allows for greater community control and provides protection from the encroachment of commercial interests onto the land. If you can't wait to navigate the red tape, you, like this tiny-house building Australian couple, may find landowners willing to let you use their land in exchange for your time and energy.

OK, you have your living space. All that hard work planning for and acquiring somewhere to live off-grid has made you thirsty. Living off-grid requires you to harvest and harness the most out of the limited, invaluable resource that is water. This can be achieved through low-tech methods such as the installation of rain barrels, the cultivation of living mulch, and the construction of swales. Water capture can also be facilitated via the design of your living space, as demonstrated by the stepped roofs of Bermuda or bowl-shaped roofs in Iran.

If you are hoping to live on the cutting edge of the 21st century, try integrating water saving technologies like the hydroponic systems used by Farm 360 in Indianapolis. Similarly, if your off-grid adventures brings you close to the ocean, modern desalinization methods like that pioneered by SAROS can achieve water self-sufficiency for far less cost than was once imagined.

Thirst quenched, time for some grub. If you are living on the road, off the grid, you likely do not have much space to grow your own food. As you meander around the world, it would be worth it to park your home on an idyllic organic farm. In exchange for your labor, you may acquire some nourishing produce, new friends, and a beautiful place to enjoy your tiny porch.
READ MORE: Stunning Moon Dragon is a fairytale-like tiny house that goes off-grid
If you are settling down in one space, planting perennials will provide you with consistent, nutritious food for years to come. Typical perennial plants include fruit and nut trees, berry bushes, and even mushroom patches. A less common but a nonetheless important component of an off-grid diet is perennial vegetables, like sorrel, asparagus, and sylvetta arugula. Although it's not quite ready yet, perennial wheat may soon find its way to an off-grid homestead near you.

You're satiated. Now it's time to get to work. If you are living off-grid, you need a well-equipped tool shed and workshop. Open Source Ecology, a project that aims to create open blueprints for the essential tools to build civilization, is an excellent resource to guide the construction of a community toolbox. You will still need to acquire raw materials and a 3D printer, but once the initial investment has been made, you can support others in the establishment of new off-grid communities.

READ MORE: Luxurious tiny home in New Zealand is off-grid and 100% self-sustaining

Tending your garden, helping your neighbors, and living the life can be hard work. After a productive day, it's time to settle in for the evening to enjoy a book or some Netflix. To illuminate your sanctuary and power your viewing, you will need a source of energy. Fortunately, there is no shortage of means for you to acquire that which you need. Solar energy, becoming cheaper by the day, is well suited for mobile off-grid living and that rooted in one place. The wind has got your back, providing power for your vehicle and your village. Even jellyfish are pitching in to support your off-grid dreams.
Images via Greenmoxie Tiny House,, Walden Studio, Tomas Manina, Image via Alex Wyndham, Zyl Vardos, Living Big in a Tiny House, Wikimedia, J Wynia, Steve Johnson, Flickr/Jules, Flickr/Lisa at Sierra Tierra, and Sean Church
Essentially, the resources are there. There are many paths towards the off-grid lifestyle of your dreams; all you have to do is take that first step and the rest will likely fall in place.

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How to get off the grid and live rent-free

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View Slideshow Many people dream of living off the grid, rent-free - and a select few have turned that dream into a reality. It takes more than just a stack of solar panels and a tiny house though - you need a plan that provides for all of the necessities of daily life.

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Rehydrating land, restoring the hydrological cycle and the impact on climate.

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Rehydrating land, restoring the hydrological cycle and the impact on climate.

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Urban greenness influences airborne bacterial community composition

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Urban greenness influences airborne bacterial community composition

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JavaScript is disabled on your browser. Please enable JavaScript to use all the features on this page.

Highlights

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We compared airborne bacterial samples from parks and parking lots with 16S sequencing.

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Bacterial communities from parks and parking lots were compositionally distinct.

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Proportion of vegetated area within 50 m explained 15% of the variation among samples.

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Parking lots had similar bacterial signatures, but parks tended to be unique.

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Passive and active collection methods gave comparable results.

Abstract

Urban green space provides health benefits for city dwellers, and new evidence suggests that microorganisms associated with soil and vegetation could play a role. While airborne microorganisms are ubiquitous in urban areas, the influence of nearby vegetation on airborne microbial communities remains poorly understood. We examined airborne microbial communities in parks and parking lots in Eugene, Oregon, using high-throughput sequencing of the bacterial 16S rRNA gene on the Illumina MiSeq platform to identify bacterial taxa, and GIS to measure vegetation cover in buffer zones of different diameters. Our goal was to explore variation among highly vegetated (parks) versus non-vegetated (parking lots) urban environments. A secondary objective was to evaluate passive versus active collection methods for outdoor airborne microbial sampling. Airborne bacterial communities from five parks were different from those of five parking lots (p = 0.023), although alpha diversity was similar. Direct gradient analysis showed that the proportion of vegetated area within a 50 m radius of the sampling station explained 15% of the variation in bacterial community composition. A number of key taxa, including several Acidobacteriaceae were substantially more abundant in parks, while parking lots had higher relative abundance of Acetobacteraceae. Parks had greater beta diversity than parking lots, i.e. individual parks were characterized by unique bacterial signatures, whereas parking lot communities tended to be similar to each other. Although parks and parking lots were selected to form pairs of nearby sites, spatial proximity did not appear to affect compositional similarity. Our results also showed that passive and active collection methods gave comparable results, indicating the "settling dish" method is effective for outdoor airborne sampling. This work sets a foundation for understanding how urban vegetation may impact microbial communities, with potential implications for designing neighborhoods and open space systems that foster better human health.

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Urban greenness influences airborne bacterial community composition

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JavaScript is disabled on your browser. Please enable JavaScript to use all the features on this page. * We compared airborne bacterial samples from parks and parking lots with 16S sequencing. * Bacterial communities from parks and parking lots were compositionally distinct. * Proportion of vegetated area within 50 m explained 15% of the variation among samples.

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Slovak team of hydrologists with replicable strategies for rehydrating landscapes

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Address climate change-related issues with the scientifically proven solution

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Latest report on Green Roofs from the European Urban Green Infrastructure Conference 2019

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Latest report on Green Roofs from the European Urban Green Infrastructure Conference 2019

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Download the pdf

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Click on image to download report in PDF format

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Green spaces can be designed to be multifunctional, pleasant for people, resilient during droughts, and ready to channel stormwater into parks and town squares where it can filter through into ground water. These stormwater or rainwater gardens take the burden off the sewerage system in times of heavy rainfall and prevent back-ups that are a health hazard.

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In the northern hemisphere cities and towns are increasing under threat from changes to the hydrological cycle. Periods of drought are often followed by heavy rainwater that the urban hard surfaces are not designed to accommodate. Storm water floods streets and runs into basements, underground railways and carparks, not to mention sewers which are then hard pressed to deal with increased flow and can back up, resulting in raw sewage creating potential health hazards. Transforming all those hard surfaces with permeable rain gardens, bioswales, small paving stones, green roofs etc can made a contribution to stormwater management.

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Stormwater management is an intrinsic design feature in this urban eco-neighbourhood development. It contains many essential features such as bioswales, permeable pavements/guttering, and green roofs.

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Water can be channelled into bioswales that run along the kerb allowing it to pass over soil and filter through to groundwater. They are also a major addition to pleasant cityscapes.

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Woodsman Ben Law Built his house entirely from his own coppiced woodland

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Woodsman Ben Law Built his house entirely from his own coppiced woodland

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Ben Law is reviving some old woodland arts and crafts in his wood in southern England. Coppicing is almost a lost craft, one we should revive as it is sustainable woodland management. Law even built his own house, after many years of living in various temporary shelters, a leaky caravan and even sleeping in trees. He's remarkable. The building was documented for the Grand Designs TV programme and it is really inspirational, besides illustrating a variety of techniques Law expands on in his books and workshops. Really a must watch.

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Grand Designs - Woodsman Cottage (Ben Law)

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Greening the city with green roofs is as effective against stormwater as well as insulating against heatwaves. Even on an individual level, putting plants on your roofs can make a difference.

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Architectural Design for Stormwater Management

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Architectural Design for Stormwater Management

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Councils and government bodies should be encouraged to employ architects trained to design green and resilient urban landscape.  In this new development the architect has combined green spaces with stormwater swales.

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And how do we build one?

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Rain Garden Basics - Rain Gardens | Washington State University Extension

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WSU research and experiments have shown that stormwater collected from highways around Puget Sound is lethal to fish. However, when that same stormwater was filtered through a special rain garden soil mix - the fish lived. Rain gardens can be a important tool in limiting the amount of contaminated water reaching our streams and Puget Sound.

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Trees also function as phyto-remediators to accumulate chemicals and clean the water before it filters through to ground water. But it is essential that the trees are chosen well for the climate and to withstand periods of drought as well as heavy rainfall.

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There are a wide variety of ideas for green roofs that can sequester carbon, while absorbing rainwater, insulating agains cold and heat, and diversifying wildlife in the bioregion within urban areas.

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Livingroofs.org, the leading UK green roof website

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Launched in 2002, the number one UK green roof website providing information and resources on green roofs, green walls and green infrastructure

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Using nature's solutions is always best. Gravity fed bioswales are preferable to the use of energy for pumps. Greening your neighbourhood is also a good way to ensure air quality.

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Stormwater runoff from urban roads is contaminated with petrol, heavy metals and other potential hazards to the health of humans and non-humans alike. Chosing plants that are accumulators, that facilitate phyto-remediation, the uptake of harmful substances in stormwater runoff will ensure that groundwater isn't contaminated.

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The new French law on biodiversity goes some way towards dealing with stormwater as well. Does it go far enough? Do we need more of these regulations?

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The new French law that includes a mandate for green roofs and solar roofs has finally been passed. The French Biodiversity Law went through on August 8th, although the Guardian originally suggested it had become law back in 2015.

But what does the law actually say? And more to the point, what do we think will be its impact in the long term?

The French Law - Biodiversity Act and Green Roof Statement

Livingroofs.org's French colleagues have translated the green roof and renewable energy statement in the law for us.

It states:
"Bringing nature back into the city" with an "obligation for every new commercial development to integrate green roofs OR solar panels" (AN2) I. - Article L. 111-19 of the Urban Development Code is also supplemented by three paragraphs as follows: "For projects mentioned in Article L 752-1 of the Commercial Code, the construction of new buildings will only be authorised if they include: "On all ORa part of their roofs, and not exclusively, EITHER renewable energy generation systems OR a greening system ensuring a high level of thermal efficiency and insulation and promoting the preservation and restoration of biodiversity OR other systems that will have the same result."
The statement contains a lot of EITHER/OR s. Whilst it may seem positive that finally a national government has taken the ambitious step to create a national law that includes green roofs, will this lead to an increase in uptake? A colleague who often works in France commented:

'This will make it very complicated and confusing ... because there are too many EITHER/ORs'

Livingroofs.org has already written that, given an option of solar OR green roofs, a developer might be more likely to choose solar. In the light of this, people in the green roof movement might want to review their enthusiasm for this law. The original draft law put before the French Senate proposed solar AND green roofs. This would have removed the choice between technologies and promoted biosolar roofs that deliver for biodiversity AND renewable energy generation.

Solar and green roofs combined are the future

Here at Livingroofs.org, we are all for the use of solar panels at roof level. However, we believe that the future lies in combining both technologies, to create biosolar roofs. Forward-thinking developers may well consider both. Nonetheless, until it becomes policy of some sort, the majority probably will not.

As the new Law only comes into effect in March 2017, we are unlikely to see the impact for several years. Livingroofs.org will be eagerly watching the roofs of France to see what happens next.

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The new French law for green and solar roofs - what will it mean?

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The new French law that includes a mandate for green roofs and solar roofs has finally been passed. The French Biodiversity Law went through on August 8th, although the Guardian originally suggested it had become law back in 2015. But what does the law actually say?

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Everyone with the know-how can green their own roof.