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Hydrological Restoration of Rangeland and Desert Watersheds

HYDROLOGICAL RESTORATION
Designed for avid environmentalists, watershed restoration technicians, permaculturists and planners.
This class is Bilingual (offered in English/Spanish)

OFFERED: October 13—16, 2015
LOCATION: UA Santa Cruz, Nogales (rm N351)
INSTRUCTOR: Dr. Gary Nabhan
FEE: $75.00
TO REGISTER CALL: 520-626-5093

The hydrological restoration of our arid ecosystem is essential to create a secure future for food production and the environment. This course will focus on water harvesting as a vehicle to capture this priceless resource, while controlling erosion of valuable, nutrient-rich soil. The course prepares participants to create sustainable food production systems as employees earning livable wages or farmers/environmentalists. This knowledge is crucial in the “post-groundwater era” of Arizona farm and range production in order to con-serve water resources while also buffering properties from catastrophic flood events associated with denuded urban landscapes and climate change.

Field trips and hand’s-on demonstrations and classroom discussions will focus on the techniques of “slow hydrology,” that is, the slowing down of otherwise erosive water flow. Slow hydrology uses gabions, silt traps and one-rock dams: structures that filter sediment from run-off and rainwater water before it reaches a stream or clean body of water. We will visit restoration sites for desert streams and a variety of agricultural desert water harvesting sites: from small rain gardens of less than 200 square feet, to large, landscape-level food forests of four to six acres.

This is the second class in our new, seven class Rural Development and Local Food Production certificate program.

The other required certificate courses are:

• Nursery Management for Rural Development
• Greenhouse & High Tunnel Management for Vegetable and Fruit Production
• Growing Food in a Hotter, Drier Land: Food Production in the Face of Climate Change
• Seed Libraries: Making Adapted Seeds, Fruit Tree Cuttings and Fermented Food Cultures Accessible in Rural Communities
• Fruits of Your Labor: Selecting, Grafting and Pruning Fruits, Nuts and Grapes for Desert Orchards
• Strategies, Permits and Regulations for Direct-Marketing Farm and Garden Products

Please visit this page for full information
and a link to the registration page:
https://ce.arizona.edu/hydrology

Download the PDF for this class.

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DR. GARY NABHAN is an internationally-celebrated nature writer, food and farming activist, and proponent of conserving the links between biodiversity and cultural diversity. He has been honored as a pioneer and creative force in the “local food movement” and seed saving community by Utne Reader, Mother Earth News, New York Times, Bioneers and Time magazine.

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