edkemper's Page

Okay Ed, here's my "armchair" analysis, without looking at the soils or the health of the ecology, both upland and wetland. It seems to me that the "flat" upper area has a lot of roads crisscrossing through that are probably altering the drainage patterns in a negative way. Broad-scale agriculture up there would be inhospitable, I think you'd want a series of swales starting from the uppermost area stepping down to the top of the river bank to infiltrate water in the ground and establish vegetation. I would concentrate any production on the South facing and SE facing slopes down to the river. There you have a nice edged microclimate. I would also place the house, or village core or whatever at the top of the bank, near the center of the property. So you're infiltrating water and establishing vegetation on the plateau stepping down towards the house(?) and then terracing from the house down to the river you're tucking gardens and fruit and nut trees amongst the existing trees, irrigation with greywater, stored rainwater, and then possibly diverting water from off-contour swales in the upper plateau to garden catchment areas tucked into those S & SE slopes.

THEN you develop the river edge with chinampa systems, that can be woven throughout the wetland areas. I can't elaborate much without seeing the level of disturbance or continuity of the wetland areas. Are those protected intact habitats or degraded and full of invasives and in need of restoration? Major earthworks within the wetland system to create higher and lower areas of intense edge would be one model, that would involve a lot of initial disturbance to the area (look up chinampa).

That's a pretty broad stroke on a general strategy for zoning and water management, without knowing any real details from you. Let me know if you can see what I see.

Take care,

Andrew

Ed,

It takes me to Google Earth, but you referred to your chicken scratch and I don't get any info other than being zoomed in to the property. Is the total area that I'm shown on the screen the property boundaries, or is there some other information that's meant to come through?

Thanks

Ed,

That link took me to a site, but whatever lines or notes you made did not come through for me. Would you be willing to give it another try?

Andrew

Ed,

Sounds like you have enough land to do substantial water management. 20' drop is definitely enough to move water around to where you want it. What is the average yearly rainfall in Chiloquin? If you send me a link to the location with the property boundaries, I can give you my armchair impression of the water management potential.

Take care,

Andrew

I mean Klamath Lake...