The therapeutic and aesthetic benefits of water features can transform your backyard landscape into a true oasis. In addition to your backyard swimming pool, you can expand the benefits of water by incorporating a fountain into your landscape design. And don’t worry: it’s not necessarily opposed to water conservation! You can easily adapt your water fountain design in a way that helps conserve water. The basic principles to keep in view are minimizing evaporation, recycling escaped water, and following basic water conservation principles.
How To Minimize Evaporation of Fountain Water
Evaporation, the process by which liquids transform into gas, threatens to pilfer water from your water fountain. However, it can only affect the water on the surface. So a major way to reduce water elimination by way of evaporation is to lessen the surface area; in other words, decrease the size of your fountain, or at least the amount of space in which water will be present. You don’t have to think too small here, but either way, the overall effect will still make a splash in your backyard landscape!
In addition to decreasing surface area, you can reduce evaporation by keeping the area surrounding the fountain cool. Trees and other foliage surrounding the water feature will help keep the area shaded and, as a result, cooler. By allowing less water to escape your fountain via evaporation, you’ll conserve more. An added bonus is that you’ll create a space that’s both comfortable and visually appealing.
How To Recycle Escaped Fountain Water
Especially for water features that splash or overspray, it’s important to plan for that extraneous water — after all, you don’t want it wasted by resting on a hardscape and evaporating! Instead, you can surround your fountain with foliage, allowing the overspray to help water it. Alternatively, you could surround the fountain with a patio that has gravel joints, so at least the overspray soaks into the ground. Of course, natural stone with contrasting joints also offers visual interest, so it’s another design win-win!
How To Reduce & Reuse Fountain Water
By carefully designing your fountain with water conservation in view, you can ensure that overspray and splash are greatly reduced. In addition, you can ensure that any water flow escapes down the sides into a basin from which it is recirculated reusing the same water again and again. Another alternative that allows you to reuse water is to position the fountains where you’ll have a sloped runoff feed into them. Depending on your yard, you may have other possibilities.
Of course, when it comes to your swimming pool, some of the same principles apply. You can decrease evaporation by making sure your pool is in a shaded area and covering it whenever it’s not in use.
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