"songbird" wrote in message
...
FarmI wrote:
songbird wrote:
FarmI wrote:
songbird wrote:
...
all very interesting. in other arid climates with
no severe drains/gullies you can line rocks across the
ground and they will act as a water catch when it
rains to slow down the water so that more soaks in.

Standard practice in permaculture and other forms of land management
but
usually it's contour forming on farmland using a tractor/dozer and uses
earth. They're called swales.

ah, the usage i'm familiar with for those
is a sometimes marshy ground, not a particularly
made structure -- though i can see how the term
would be adapted/adopted for them too. the
made structures i would call dams.

Absolutley not a dam. They are just earthwork contour gutters (for want
of
a better word to describe them).

*nods* yes, i know of what you speak, i was
just nattering about how the usage is different.

???? Your dams are used differently or swales are used differently?


here i call places seeps are catches where i
gather water from a harder rain. i wouldn't call
them swales because they are not marshy.

But swales don't have to be marshy and in fact I don't think I've ever
seen
one that could be called marshy.

likely a climate/country related shift in usage
(i'm assuming it's much drier there so there
may not be as much of the marshy aspect going on).
the usage of the word here is about an area that
is sometimes marshy. the erosion control or over
flow water control aspects are not even mentioned
in the definition (Middle English origin should
give you a better way of seeing how the usage has
shifted).


The function of swales is to slow down rain run off and let the water
soak
in and recharge the soil with moisture. Thus swales work well in both
arid
and dry temperate zones where the rainfall can come in fast and furious
bursts (like from passing storms) but where the rain is not sustainedfor
a
long time. They probably also work in high rainfall areas to slow the
flow
of water across a clandscape but where they arent' necesarrily needed to
give much needed soil moisture.

yes, i'm aware of the function of them, sorry
to have confused you to think i wasn't.

:-)) Well now youv'e got me wondering about dams and swales and diffeirng
usage etc.

I'm off travelling for a few weeks so will be mute from today for a while.