Tucson, Arizona
Brad Lancaster is the author of the award-winning book series "Rainwater Harvesting for Drylands and Beyond" and co-founder of NeighborhoodForesters.org. Since 1993 Brad has run a successful permaculture education, design, and consultation business focused on integrated regenerative approaches to landscape design, planning, policy, and living.
In the Sonoran Desert, with just 11 inches of annual rainfall, he and his brother's family harvest about 100,000 gallons of rainwater a year on an eighth-acre urban lot and adjoining public right-of-way. This harvested water is then turned into living air conditioners of food-bearing shade trees, abundant gardens, and a thriving landscape incorporating wildlife habitat, beauty, medicinal plants, and more.
The goal of his book series and overall work is to empower his clients and community to make positive change in their own lives and neighborhoods—by harvesting and enhancing free on-site resources such as water, sun, wind, shade, community, and more–in a way that reciprocally collaborates with the natural systems that sustain us. It’s catching on, as evidenced by tens of thousands of practitioners and demand for Brad’s work around the world.