Keeping water on the property by slowing it down

When we first started planting trees on this property, we focused on restoring fragile gully areas to help with erosion. During high rainfall events, rainfall was just gushing down the hills, taking a lot of dirt and rock with it. This was because there was little ground cover to slow down the water or hold the soil in place.
To keep water on the property, the idea is to slow the flow of the water through the landscape. By having the ground cover, the trees and the fencing, we’ve been able to do that.

I’ve been doing on-ground works for three years: putting dams in, rerouting overflows and creating contours, so you get this natural irrigation process happening throughout the landscape.

That’s based on natural sequence farming principles by Peter Andrews. And I’m just about to start some more work on that now.
I’ve also been practising what he says on this property anyway. Nature does a lot of healing by itself if you allow it to.

Creating contours slows the flow of water through the property, making for a natural irrigation process.