Portland reader Jeff Holiman sent us email with this interesting story about how a local neighborhood incorporates art with functionality to capture rainwater. Thanks Jeff for sending this!

"Hello,
I am sending to you a link of a recent downspout sculpture installation in Portland, Oregon. More information found here: commissionersam.com.

This arousing project consists of an arching metal trough sculpture of salmon swimming upstream fabricated to also serve as a rainwater downspout. With the ability to direct over 107,000 gallons of rain water annually from a 3,400 sq ft.rooftop into an engineered bioswale this is an appropriately functional art piece. A bioswale is essentially a giant engineered divot containing complex soil components and water tolerant flora which serve to slow, cool and filter the rainwater with the use of plants, fungus and soil substructures before percolating into groundwater or finding it's way to the Willamette River. The possible permutations of similar design will include irrigation of community permaculture, and human hydration following appropriate filtration.

This installation is attractive to me for a number of reasons, but primarily because it directly has a positive impact on local / global water quality. This "downspout disconnect" or better "redirect" display and bioswale demonstration is therapeutic because this is a tangible example of solutions to one of the most common freshwater blunders, i.e. ignoring the value of rainwater. Such a visually stimulating and watershed consciousness provoking sculpture serves to soothe, inspire and rehabilitate the human condition at multiple levels, particularly important during a period of rapid and less predictable climate change."

Jeff Holiman - Portland Oregon

Oregon readers, if you have a story suggestion, send your idea in an email to oregon @ worldchanging dot com!