Water Infiltration, Bioremediation & Cooling
Rescue Earth System
Developing the knowledge and practical experience required to advance regenerative land and water management techniques, including but not limited to permaculture techniques for soil hydration and natural sequence farming, and rural landscape management techniques aimed at restoring natural water cycles that allow the land to flourish despite drought conditions.
Water Infiltration, Bioremediation & Cooling
Personal Target: 100 m3 of water infiltrated annually
Initiative Global Target: 100 billion m3 of water infiltrated annually
Ultimate Global Goal: 750 billion m3 of water infiltrated annually
Infiltration Swale Systems are a water infiltration, flood control, nutrient loss reduction and bioremediation strategy that seamlessly incorporates nature belts / wildlife corridors into a diverse range of settings. This intervention also includes permaculture ‘food forest’ type swales.
In urban areas, flooding from storm water run-off can be successfully mitigated by the installation of aesthetically appealing Rain Garden Low Impact Development (LID) Systems which retain and infiltrate excess water.
Bioremediation Systems use living organisms, primarily microorganisms, to degrade the environmental contaminants into less toxic forms within purposely built structural interventions such as Infiltration Swale Systems and Rain Garden Low Impact Development (LID) Systems.
Thirdly, you can pay for the Keyline ploughing of 1 hectare of pastures. On average around 1,000 litres of rainfall lands on every square metre on Earth per year. Therefore, 100 litres infiltrated per square metre on 10,000 m2 (1 hectare) of land is 1,000,000 litres or 1,000 m3 of water infiltrated.
All three of the above interventions can substantially reduce the severity of flood events and they can cool local environments by a few degrees, especially if the infiltrated water is used by trees — and, furthermore, the trees clean the air and help make more consistent rain!
In most cases, the bioremediation component is a natural phenomenon of wetlands — however, bioremediation may be augmented with the addition of specific microbes and adsorbents such as biochar if needs be.
Peatlands, which cover just 3% of Earth’s surface, store 550 billion tonnes of carbon — twice as much as all forests combined. However, some 15% of them have been drained for agriculture. We need to reverse this trend!

How can I make a difference?
You can choose any one or more of the interventions listed below and your contribution will make a massive difference to the ground water levels in your bioregion. The knock-on effects are substantial.
N.B. The standardised financial contribution ERIx10 fee is 100 x the minimum wage rate in your country.
Add a permaculture food forest swale or a Rain Garden LID System to your garden
If you would like to go for it alone then this is the best option for you. Creating 10 metres of permaculture food forest swale or a 10 m3 (approximately a 5 metre wide slopped hollow) Rain Garden LID System is achievable in most larger yards.
You may organise a Permablitz to build your food forest or rain garden or you can use the Permablitz System to get others to help you for a few hours. The Permablitz System uses the BZ token for transactions via the RESCUE.exchange.
Join a local project and help them to build a community food forest swale system or a Rain Garden LID System
Community food forest systems and Rain Garden LID System are often integrated into place making projects. Why? They can easily be landscaped to be multifunctional zones. You can join a project as a volunteer yourself or pay the standardised financial contribution FEE towards the cost of materials and earth moving equipment, etc.
Join a local or a bioregional project and help them to develop Infiltration Swale Systems on a whole landscape scale
The large scale implementation of Infiltration Swale Systems is project based. All projects include project managers that are suitably qualified in hydrology, ecosystem restoration and earthworks to make sure that Infiltration Swale Systems are safely built for the best outcome. You can join a project as a volunteer yourself (to plant seeds & trees) or pay the standardised financial contribution FEE towards the cost of materials (trees & piping, etc.) and the cost of hiring earth moving equipment, etc.
Pay for the Keyline Ploughing of 1,000 m2 pastures — Keyline Ploughing is carried out by specialised projects
Keyline Ploughing facilitates the deep infiltration of water into the soil — an area of 1,000 m2 can on average infiltrate an additional 100,000 litres of rainfall per year This equates to 1,000,000 litres more rainfall that can be infiltrated per hectare per year. Your donation will thus make a massive difference to the objective of rehydrating our planet and remove 100,000 litres from floodwaters!
