The Water Stories
Core Course

Essentials Available now

Join The Waitlist For Advanced 2024

Learn how to restore the health and vitality of Earth's water systems, no matter where you are.

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Practical Pathways

This Course is designed to empower students with the skills and knowledge needed to take effective action and achieve results. There are three pathways to choose from to ensure that each student can reach their unique goals.

Professional

Do you want to earn your livelihood healing the Earth and bringing water back to land? If your answer is yes, this is the pathway for you. You will be equipped with essential skills to establish or enhance your career as a Water Cycle Restoration Professional. You will learn all of the facets of providing water cycle restoration services; from how to get work and create estimates, to delivering finished projects. The professional pathway prepares you with everything you need to step into this vocation through requiring relevant actions with the support and mentorship of a professional community dedicated to progress, success, and support.

Steward

Land stewards like farmers, gardeners, and land managers face uncertainty from water scarcity and climatic extremes. This pathway will guide you in enhancing the health of your landscape through partnership with natural processes. You will learn how to create water retention interventions, maximize the health of your local ecosystems, and create eco-oases suitable to your context, soil type, and climate. You’ll gain the insights you need to steward your land with confidence, whether doing the work yourself, or working with others. Above all, you’ll see a new potential to rehydrate your land, and make it beautiful and abundant for generations.

Advocate

Become a voice for the voiceless. You can make an incredible impact on your ecosystem, local water cycle, and climate by being an advocate for water and nature. The living systems of Earth don’t have a voice within human decision making - they rely on us to speak for them. Students in this pathway will learn how to create community movements for water restoration and how to develop political, legal, and organizing strategies to help facilitate changes on a large scale. Raising awareness is an essential first step in restoring the health of our planet. No matter your age, location, or background, you can make a difference in restoring the Water Cycle.

Why Should You

Take the Core Course

We live in a time of crisis; drought, flood, wildfire, water scarcity, mass migration, species extinction, and climate extremes. These problems are massive and can feel overwhelming, yet there are so many things we can do to have a tangible impact when we start working with water and nature. The Core Course takes you on a practical journey, teaching you what to do, how to do it, and even how to make a career out of it.

We live in a time of crisis;
drought, flood, wildfire, water scarcity, mass migration, species extinction, and climate extremes.
These problems are massive and can feel overwhelming
yet there are so many things we can do to have a tangible impact when we start working with water and nature.
The Core Course takes you on a practical journey,
teaching you what to do, how to do it, and even how to make a career out of it.
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Create Your Own

Water Abundant Landscapes

The Core Course is your gateway to the fundamental skills needed to retain water on landscapes and recharge aquifers. You might want to create a water abundant landscape on your land, or start a meaningful career building water retention systems, or be a champion of water cycle restoration in your community.

Whatever your background, this course will teach you the how and why of water cycle repair and provide you with the foundational understanding of how to re-hydrate landscapes - no matter how degraded. You will learn the what, why, and how of water cycle repair.

A mind-shifting journey

Actions that lead to experience

Beyond sharing the practical stories and videos, the core course is designed to help you undergo an even more important mental shift that will help you see the landscape in a new way. Each module has a series of actions and activities for you to implement. This is where the real learning will take place, and where you’ll gain the confidence you need to proceed. In the community we share our experiences and learn from each other's approaches and results - a community of practitioners helping, and supporting one another.

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Explore the Course
The training you need to succeed

Learn more about the content and format of the course, the enrollment options, and what you can expect from the experience. We’ve designed this course to provide you with everything you need to become a water cycle restoration practitioner and restore the health of your lands, waters, and communities.

Course PreviewCourse FAQ

Inspiration and Guidance from Global Water Heroes

This course features the insights of Water Heroes like Sepp Holzer, Waangari Maathai and Rajendra Singh, who have restored landscapes, rivers, and rainfall through water retention. You’ll learn how they retained water, rehydrated land, and led their communities towards large scale Earth repair. You’ll learn about their mindsets, and have the opportunity to gain the mental fortitude that’s required to make true systemic change.

Zach Weiss leads the course, sharing the wisdom gained from working with and learning from the world’s best water leaders. Throughout the course he shares the essential knowledge and most important approaches he’s gained from more than a decade of professional experience implementing decentralized water retention on 6 of Earth’s 7 continents. You’ll learn the most effective techniques, how they work, and how to create them yourself.

Your Teacher

Meet Your Instructor

Protégé of revolutionary Austrian farmer Sepp Holzer, Zach is the first person to earn the Holzer Practitioner Certification directly from Sepp - through a rigorous two-year apprenticeship. Since his certification, Zach has worked in 23 different countries spanning 6 continents, covering a wide range of climates, contexts, land-forms, and ecosystems implementing Decentralized Water Retention Earthworks.

More About Zach WeissLearn more
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One Course,
Two Different Formats

The Core Course is offered as Essentials and Advanced to support the diverse needs, goals, and schedules of our students. Both options include the same core video content, modules and lessons. Where they differ is in the class experience. Essentials is self paced access to the content, while Advanced is with a class cohort including live sessions and a workbook of actions to be completed for certification. Certification is only available to those that complete the advanced course.

Essentials

Completely Self-Guided
Online and At Home Course
4 Phases of Growth
12 Video Modules
Bonus Video Content

Advanced

6 Month Live Online Training
Class Cohort with Other Students
Workbook with Expert Feedback
Live Bi-Weekly Sessions
Certification
Alumni Access to Professional Development
Everything in Essentials

Purchase Anytime

Core Course Essentials

The Essentials program is a self-guided online course. Students will have access to the foundational content of the Core Course, which is the 12 module video library. The course library consists of 80+ educational videos on restoring water cycle health through mindset, ecological awareness, community engagement, planning and building water retention features, and offering water cycle restoration services.

Enroll anytime.
You don’t have to wait for the next course to start, begin your journey immediately.
Self paced.
All of the modules are open immediately, go through the content as quickly or slowly as you like.
12 month access.
Watch the course at your own pace, you have a full year’s access to all of the content.
Responsive learning.
Quizzes are available for each chapter to help guide your learning, but are not required.
Enroll Now

$2,120

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Sign Up Today

Core Course Advanced

The Advanced program is a live 6-month training with a class of other students around the world. Students have access to all of the content of essentials, plus a workbook with guided actions and feedback and live bi-weekly sessions with Zach. Course modules and bonus videos are released every week, over a 6 month period. Successful completion of the advanced program results in Water Cycle Restoration Certification.

Graduates are celebrated and promoted through the Water Stories network and listed in our directory of practitioners. Graduates also have the option to join a monthly membership that includes continued access to all of the content, professional development sessions, bonus videos, and the evolving content of the course. They also gain access to additional one on one sessions and direct mentorship.

6 month course.
Go through the course over a 6 month timeline with other students from around the world.
Opens twice per year.
Enrollment opens twice per year, in June and December.
Live sessions.
Bi-weekly live sessions for questions and discussions for each module over the 6 month class timeframe.
Workbook actions.
Work through our guided actions for each module that will lead you towards becoming a practitioner.
Expert feedback.
Receive personalized expert feedback on your workbook responses and gain confidence in your work.
Certification.
Gain certification in Water Cycle Restoration based on your pathway, either as an Advocate, Steward, or Professional
12 month content access.
All of the features of the essentials option plus additional bonus videos and resources.
Alumni membership.
Continued access to the course and live sessions with an exclusive community of practitioners
Join The Waitlist

$2,910

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Compare The Courses

A side by side comparison of the Essentials and Advanced versions of the Core Course.

Advanced

$2,910

Buy Now
    • 12 Months Access to 12 Video Modules
    • Certification for Successful Completion and Listing on the Water Stories Registry
    • 6 Month Guided Training to facilitate maximum progress, understanding, and practice
    • Bi-Monthly Live Office Hours with Zach Weiss for 6 Months
    • Workbook for Water Restoration Actions and Development
    • Direct Feedback and Project Reviews with Experienced Practitioners
    • Bonus Video Content - Project Examples, Timelapses, and Additional Instructional Videos
    • Prioritized Access to and Discounts for In-person Opportunities
    • Opportunity for 1 on 1 Coaching with Zach (at an additional hourly rate)
    • Option To Join Alumni Membership for continuing professional development and access to the evolving course materials listed above.
    • Enrollment Opens Only Twice Per Year (6 months apart)

Essentials

$2,120

Buy Now
    • 12 Months Access to 12 Video Modules
    • Immediate Access to All 12 Modules
    • Can Be Purchased Any Time
    • Go at your own pace, self-guided study

Value of the Course

The value that this course provides is not in the video chapters, but in the changes in your life it will help precipitate. This course will lead you through implementing positive changes within your own life and landscape. You'll leave the course with a new mindset, invaluable skills and knowledge, and a community to support you throughout the process.

Professional

  • A way to earn your living healing Earth
  • Opens the doorway to a livelihood or vocation in water cycle restoration‍
  • Potential to earn a 6 figure income per year, $60-200 per hour,
  • Learn nearly lost skills - gain the ability to return water to land‍
  • Spend your “on-time” doing something you believe in

Steward

  • Most useful track for Farmers, Growers, Landowners, and Land Managers
  • Improve the health, beauty, vitality, and value of your land
  • Increase ecological and agricultural productivity
  • Gain water security, save water, and reverse drought
  • Reduce the risk and severity of flood, drought, and fire
  • Save tens of thousands in consultants and contractors
  • Learn how to save your land from costly environmental disasters; drought, flood, and fire

Advocate

  • Gain the essentials taught by leading practitioners
  • Learn how to lead your community towards a better common future
  • Gain civil courage and a community of peers for support
  • Strengthen or find your voice as an advocate for water and life
  • Learn how to clearly articulate solutions and how to inspire community action
  • Save tens of thousands in consultants and contractors
  • Become someone who can lead your community to have an impact on the climate and ecosystem

The Time Is Now

True change is only achieved through action

True change is only achieved through action. No one has ever changed the world by sitting on their couch and wishing that someone would do something. The Core Course teaches you how to revive water systems in order to create healthy land, abundant water, and strong regions for generations. Be that someone, do that something. Get started with the Water Stories Core Course.

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Begin Your Journey
Become a Water Cycle Restoration Practitioner

Joining this course is a major step towards fulfilling your calling to heal our waters, lands, and communities. Whether as a professional, steward, or advocate, this training program will help you reach your goals.

Join The Advanced CoursePreview the Course

Preview

The Core Course

Want to get a better feel for the course? Watch the introduction videos to the course to get a better feel for the content and format, what to expect, and what we expect of you.

Preview the CourseCourse FAQ

Listen To These

Success Stories

Hear from former students who have completed the Water Stories Training Program from across the world. Our ambitious students have taken topics learned through the Water Stories Core Course to build Water Retention Earthworks, empower their local communities, and relearn how to steward their lands in collaboration with nature.

Zach you offer a wide array of topics in a short amount of time. Pulling from your diverse experiences around the world to share with us all. This course is not just about water but about a way to live and see in the natural world. A way to identify opportunities to make your surrounding system thrive with abundance. There’s a philosophy, a tool kit and a methodology offered in this course that cannot be gained anywhere else. Completing the course gave me greater confidence to continue my work as a consultant designing and implementing water in the landscape features in our area. Helping to revive the hydrologic cycle for the wider region feels like a good positive step that I can take for the planet. Thanks goes to you and your team for putting it all together for people looking for this in-depth experience.

Brian Kerkvliet
Professional Pathway

Zach’s way of speaking carries a lot of good will, dedication and also fundamental knowledge. He certainly is a good teacher giving a caring support and having enthusiasm in his work. The course will give you fundamental understanding on how to work in water restauration and also how far this field can go. Be sure you plan enough time for the required actions and sessions and dive in as deeply and open as possible. If you want to develop a professional career you will know in the end what else you have to come through to this point. This course opens the doors to the world that needs to be discovered by yourself. What I loved most was the peer group in this first course having such profound, warmhearted and openly cooperating people in the course really surprised me. Dealing with water for quite some time I realized during the course that it is very important to learn a lot about plants and soil regeneration as this really allows us to become good advisers and land stewards. Combined with my hands-on experience this course allowed me to be able to build my first big Pond for swimming and storing rainwater being prepared for the hickups to come. We formed a German speaking group that now feels like a peer group for the future, allowing us to go deeper and train explaining together. And hey, it also supported hands on my construction site. Thank you for this training. It was the best course experience I have so far!

Gerhard Üblinger
Land Steward Pathway

This is the course I was waiting for. I've been a fan of Sepp Holzer's work for ages and have always wanted to learn more about how I can implement his solutions for the betterment of the Earth. And Zach Weiss has delivered! Zach's course has given me all of the missing pieces so that I can offer a truly holistic service to my clients, as well as the confidence to act as an educator to the wider community. Perfect!

Julia Eden
Advocate Pathway

Video Testimonials

How the core course has impacted people’s lives

Julian Stolte

Julian Stolte graciously shares a review of and recommendation for the Water Stories Core Course.

Apollo Saldana

Apollo Saldana talks about his experience with Water Stories becoming a Water Restoration Practitioner.

View Our

Success Stories Webinar

Want to see graduate projects directly from Water Stories students? This webinar features 6 students who undertook their own journey to restore water where they live. We're proud to show the results!

Watch the Student Success Story Webinar

Ready To Enroll?

Join us and sign up today

Essentials CourseAdvanced Course