A new rainwater-harvesting project was unveiled Thursday at Cal Poly’s Beef Center in the Chorro Valley.

The project, which will benefit the university’s agricultural operations and serve as a demo for visitors, will help to reduce groundwater pumping and manage runoff.

The system will channel rainwater from the Beef Center’s roofs and shade structures — up to nearly 300,000 gallons in a typical season — and route it to four large tanks for storage.

After filtration, a solar pump, shown above, will push the water to three other tanks on a hill nearby. From there, it can be gravity-fed into the facility’s plumbing system and routed to troughs in the corrals.