Water and Soil - Project Planning and Management for Ecological Restoration - page 100

Determining the Type of Water Delivery
and Storage System

There are many methods of delivering water
to your site (figs. 7-2 and 7-3). Depending on
the source and the orientation of your site,
some methods may be very simple (box 7-2).
If the water supply is below your site, then
getting the water up to your site may require
pumping or some other type of system.
Some options have only one method
of delivery, whereas others that rely on the
natural weather patterns will require the de-
velopment of storage systems so water can
be made available to the site outside of the
normal precipitation season.

Maintenance Requirements

The initial system selected will significantly
affect the activities required through the life
of the water supply system. For short-lived
systems, this may not be a huge impact; on
large projects, however, regardless of du-
ration, it may strongly affect your resource
budget. Some of the most common mainte-
nance issues include the following:
• Labor: repair of facility, grading,

digging, valve repair, engines on pumps

• Fuel: operate pumps, water trucks

FIGURE 7-2. Constructed vernal pools situated
using data collected on watershed to pool area
ratios. Rainfall is the only means of filling these
seasonal pools. Seeds, collected from adjacent
natural pools, were hand broadcast. San Diego,
California. (Photo by John Rieger.)

• Water flow: use hand or heavy

equipment to repair dikes and levees

• Pest control: manual and chemical

vegetative control of waterway, trapping,
pesticide treatments, exclosures for
animal control

• Operations of water system: regulating

delivery, gate control, siphons, and so
forth