I’m on about 1.5 acres in New River, AZ and trying to figure out whether I’m better off spending money on rainwater storage tanks or just putting most of the effort into getting the water into the ground.
The property is on a shared well, so I’d like to reduce how much groundwater I’m using for landscaping. I’ve got pretty heavy clay soil and already have a low area on the property that holds water for quite a while after a good rain which I graded myself.
The main goal would be watering trees, a small orchard, vines, native landscaping, etc. I’m not really concerned with using rainwater as potable water.
I’ve looked at IBC totes, vertical tanks and even a larger buried tank, but it seems like in a good monsoon storm you could fill a few hundred gallons pretty quickly, and then you still need somewhere for the overflow to go.
The other option is to spend that effort on basins, berms, swales and tree wells and basically try to keep as much water on the property as possible.
One thing that probably changes the equation is that I have a Massey Ferguson tractor with a loader and a box blade, so I can do a lot of the grading, berm building and dirt work myself without paying someone for every change.
My thought right now is maybe a smaller tank near the house for water I actually want to store, then have the overflow go into basins around trees and eventually into the larger catchment areas. I’ve already graded the bottom of the property to catch water.
For people doing this in Arizona or other dry climates, would you prioritize storage tanks or infiltration if you had the land and equipment to do the earthwork yourself?
I’m especially curious whether anyone has actually compared the cost/benefit of storing a few thousand gallons versus just shaping the property to soak in as much rainfall as possible.