That and cheaper too.

http://www.notechmagazine.com/2015/06/water-johads-a-low-tec...

LA has a drainage system that tries to get water out to the sea as fast as possible.

If the water is not hanging around, its not going to evaporate. So no clouds to be blown inland. Evaporating water takes energy, which lowers ambient temperature, etc.

Johads are dirt cheap, simple and effective. The basic premise is you put in half moon banks every n 100 meters. The idea is that it keeps back a certain amount of water. Excess water overflows into the same channels as before, so there is no risk of flooding.

Failing that, solar stills are much cheaper than reverse-osmosis to build, and in south California with loads of sun cheap and effective.

However you still have to transport the water.

How do you deal with mosquitos?

We deploy spiders

That's what we normally do. The failure case we have encountered, however, is sometimes there isn't any rain.

There's lots of rainwater in aggregate if you look at very large areas, but I'm not sure if collecting rainwater over a huge area is necessarily more practical than desalination. I honestly haven't studied the matter, but judging from the fact that this guy's credentials seem to amount to "Has planted a bunch of trees," I'm unsure how much of an expert he is either. He says it isn't being pushed because there isn't any industry behind it, but that seems to be begging the question. Why is no one taking this field by storm if it's actually a more practical solution? Why isn't he making money hand over fist doing this? The disconnect between the reality he suggests and the reality we observe makes me doubtful about whether this is actually a more realistic approach than desal.

Wow, you opened a lot of boxes. Lipkis is actually much more than a guy that planted a bunch of trees. His organization, and a couple of others like FOLAR (https://folar.org), have been changing the way the city of LA approaches storm water.

As a nearby comment mentions, building regulations had been designed to convey rain water to the sea as fast as possible, due to a justified fear of floods. At the micro level, this means diverting rain water to concrete channels (e.g., streets or drainage channels). For instance, when I put in a building in my back yard, I had to install a pump to pump the water from a tank filled by the rooftop gutter into the street, rather than letting it soak in to my yard.

Now, multiply that by millions, and you can see we're wasting a lot of water.

Changing the whole conception of storm water ("collect and dispose of" -> "disperse and soak in") involves changing building codes and city/county/state infrastructure practices.

Because ground water is all externalities, there is no ready market solution.

Why is no one taking this field by storm if it's actually a more practical solution?

Because there isn't as much money in it as in ginormous megaprojects? E.g. the "train to nowhere"[1] in California had the support of a Teamster leader because:

   The legislators in Sacramento got it right
   when they voted to fund this project since
   it will help hundreds of people find good
   union jobs

and his quote continues

   and the high speed rail line will provide
   a viable alternative to car and plane travel
   in the state.

I don't think that HSR from Madera California to Bakersfield California will be a "viable alternative" to anything.

Follow the money.[2]:

   a catchphrase ... which suggests a money trail
   or corruption scheme within high (often
   political) office.

Same with water. Too many dollars at stake, and too many special interests, for simple commonsense solutions to be "practical".

[1] http://www.laweekly.com/news/california-bullet-train-to-nowh... [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Follow_the_money

Well, my understanding is that in California, at least, environmentalists have blocked the creation of aqueducts/lakes for the past few decades.

I think that's called a river. And it's running dry.

Our HOA has a rule against collecting rain water. I remember a man in Oregon a few years ago got jail time for refusing to remove his rainwater bins.

I'm guessing there's a reason and possibly even a good one. Care to take a crack at it?

Step 1 should be upgrading water treatment facilities into water recycling facilities.