Water infrastructure
Community-scale water is engineering, not DIY, and pretending otherwise is how people get hurt. Phase 3 covers gravity-fed distribution from cisterns, constructed wetlands for treatment, and a water budget for the whole community. The principles are the same ones you learned with a rain barrel; the consequences of getting them wrong are not. Plan thoroughly, then pay for professional review before anyone drinks anything.
Start here
Brad Lancaster — Lancaster's work at neighborhood scale: street runoff, community plantings, and what water harvesting looks like beyond one household.
Andrew Hellebust & Garrett Johnson — A practitioner's presentation on domestic and small-community constructed wetlands: substrate layering, plant selection, free-water-surface vs. subsurface flow, and the sizing math. Suited to phase-3 planning conversations.
First project
Community water system design
Design a complete water system for your forming community: catchment, storage, filtration, distribution, and waste treatment. Calculate water budgets per household, identify backup sources, and document failure modes. Present it to the group, then get a licensed engineer to review it before implementation. The review fee is the cheapest insurance you will ever buy.
Catchment calculator
Tampa avg. rainfall: 52 inches. Formula assumes 85% collection efficiency and 0.623 gal/sq ft/inch.
Other ways in
Site water budget and earthworks plan
For your community's actual parcel, do the landscape-scale water work before plumbing. Calculate annual rainfall capture and projected demand, then design a swale-and-pond layout that follows the contours of the land. Pipes can come later.
Constructed-wetland pilot for two households
Before designing a community-wide wetland, build a small subsurface-flow wetland sized for one or two households' greywater. Measure flow rates, plant survival, and effluent quality across a full year. The pilot data settles questions the textbook cannot answer for your specific climate, substrate, and feedstock.
Go deeper
Community Experiences
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