IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/gam/jsusta/v11y2019i12p3269-d239488.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Increasing Sustainability of Residential Areas Using Rain Gardens to Improve Pollutant Capture, Biodiversity and Ecosystem Resilience

Author

Listed:
  • Jennifer Morash

    (Department of Horticulture, Auburn University, Auburn, AL 36849, USA)

  • Amy Wright

    (College of Agriculture, Auburn University, Auburn, AL 36849, USA)

  • Charlene LeBleu

    (Program of Landscape Architecture, Auburn University, Auburn, AL 36849, USA)

  • Amanda Meder

    (Department of Horticulture, Auburn University, Auburn, AL 36849, USA)

  • Raymond Kessler

    (Department of Horticulture, Auburn University, Auburn, AL 36849, USA)

  • Eve Brantley

    (Department of Crop Soil & Environmental Science, Auburn University, Auburn, AL 36849, USA)

  • Julie Howe

    (Department of Soil and Crop Sciences, Texas A&M University, College Station, TX 77843, USA)

Abstract

Rain gardens have become a widespread stormwater practice in the United States, and their use is poised to continue expanding as they are an aesthetically pleasing way to improve the quality of stormwater runoff. The terms rain garden and bioretention, are now often used interchangeably to denote a landscape area that treats stormwater runoff. Rain gardens are an effective, attractive, and sustainable stormwater management solution for residential areas and urban green spaces. They can restore the hydrologic function of urban landscapes and capture stormwater runoff pollutants, such as phosphorus (P), a main pollutant in urban cities and residential neighborhoods. Although design considerations such as size, substrate depth, substrate type, and stormwater holding time have been rigorously tested, little research has been conducted on the living portion of rain gardens. This paper reviews two studies—one that evaluated the effects of flooding and drought tolerance on the physiological responses of native plant species recommended for use in rain gardens, and another that evaluated P removal in monoculture and polyculture rain garden plantings. In the second study, plants and substrate were evaluated for their ability to retain P, a typical water pollutant. Although plant growth across species was sometimes lower when exposed to repeated flooding, plant visual quality was generally not compromised. Although plant selection was limited to species native to the southeastern U.S., some findings may be translated regardless of region. Plant tissue P was higher than either leachate or substrate, indicating the critical role plants play in P accumulation and removal. Additionally, polyculture plantings had the lowest leachate P, suggesting a polyculture planting may be more effective in preventing excess P from entering waterways from bioretention gardens. The findings included that, although monoculture plantings are common in bioretention gardens, polyculture plantings can improve biodiversity, ecosystem resilience, and rain garden functionality.

Suggested Citation

  • Jennifer Morash & Amy Wright & Charlene LeBleu & Amanda Meder & Raymond Kessler & Eve Brantley & Julie Howe, 2019. "Increasing Sustainability of Residential Areas Using Rain Gardens to Improve Pollutant Capture, Biodiversity and Ecosystem Resilience," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 11(12), pages 1-18, June.
  • Handle: RePEc:gam:jsusta:v:11:y:2019:i:12:p:3269-:d:239488
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/11/12/3269/pdf
    Download Restriction: no

    File URL: https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/11/12/3269/
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Manasvini Thiagarajan & Galen Newman & Shannon Van Zandt, 2018. "The Projected Impact of a Neighborhood-Scaled Green-Infrastructure Retrofit," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 10(10), pages 1-13, October.
    2. Suyeon Kim & Sang-Woo Lee & Jongwon Lee & Kyungjin An, 2018. "Exploring the Relationship between Prior Knowledge on Rain Gardens and Supports for Adopting Rain Gardens Using a Structural Equation Model," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 10(5), pages 1-9, May.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Mo Wang & Ji’an Zhuang & Chuanhao Sun & Lie Wang & Menghan Zhang & Chengliang Fan & Jianjun Li, 2024. "The Application of Rain Gardens in Urban Environments: A Bibliometric Review," Land, MDPI, vol. 13(10), pages 1-23, October.
    2. Pia Minixhofer & Rosemarie Stangl, 2021. "Green Infrastructures and the Consideration of Their Soil-Related Ecosystem Services in Urban Areas—A Systematic Literature Review," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 13(6), pages 1-21, March.
    3. Feiwu Chen & Qian Zhang & Sheming Chen & Yingwei Yuan, 2023. "Research on Operation Efficiency Prediction and Optimization of Biological Retention System Based on GA-BP Neural Network Model," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 15(14), pages 1-16, July.
    4. Qingchang He & Andras Reith, 2022. "(Re)Defining Restorative and Regenerative Urban Design and Their Relation to UNSDGs—A Systematic Review," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 14(24), pages 1-29, December.
    5. Rina Nuryati & Lies Sulistyowati & Trisna Insan Noor & Iwan Setiawan, 2024. "Innovation for development of sustainable integrated plantation polyculture on dry land: Using Structural Equation Modelling," Agricultural Economics, Czech Academy of Agricultural Sciences, vol. 70(6), pages 291-308.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Tolessa Deksissa & Harris Trobman & Kamran Zendehdel & Hossain Azam, 2021. "Integrating Urban Agriculture and Stormwater Management in a Circular Economy to Enhance Ecosystem Services: Connecting the Dots," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 13(15), pages 1-19, July.
    2. Woodruff, Sierra & Bae, Jinhyun & Sohn, Wonmin & Newman, Galen & Tran, Tho & Lee, Jessica & Wilkins, Chandler & Van Zandt, Shannon & Ndubisi, Forster, 2022. "Planning, development pressure, and change in green infrastructure quantity and configuration in coastal Texas," Land Use Policy, Elsevier, vol. 114(C).
    3. Sami Towsif Khan & Fernando Chapa & Jochen Hack, 2020. "Highly Resolved Rainfall-Runoff Simulation of Retrofitted Green Stormwater Infrastructure at the Micro-Watershed Scale," Land, MDPI, vol. 9(9), pages 1-18, September.
    4. Galen Newman & Garett T. Sansom & Siyu Yu & Katie R. Kirsch & Dongying Li & Youjung Kim & Jennifer A. Horney & Gunwoo Kim & Saima Musharrat, 2022. "A Framework for Evaluating the Effects of Green Infrastructure in Mitigating Pollutant Transferal and Flood Events in Sunnyside, Houston, TX," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 14(7), pages 1-16, April.
    5. Aamir Mehmood Shah & Gengyuan Liu & Fanxin Meng & Qing Yang & Jingyan Xue & Stefano Dumontet & Renato Passaro & Marco Casazza, 2021. "A Review of Urban Green and Blue Infrastructure from the Perspective of Food-Energy-Water Nexus," Energies, MDPI, vol. 14(15), pages 1-24, July.
    6. Aline Pires Veról & Ianic Bigate Lourenço & João Paulo Rebechi Fraga & Bruna Peres Battemarco & Mylenna Linares Merlo & Paulo Canedo de Magalhães & Marcelo Gomes Miguez, 2020. "River Restoration Integrated with Sustainable Urban Water Management for Resilient Cities," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 12(11), pages 1-36, June.
    7. Sara Prybutok & Galen Newman & Kayode Atoba & Garett Sansom & Zhihan Tao, 2021. "Combining Co$ting Nature and Suitability Modeling to Identify High Flood Risk Areas in Need of Nature-Based Services," Land, MDPI, vol. 10(8), pages 1-12, August.
    8. Neil Cuthill & Mengqiu Cao & Yuqi Liu & Xing Gao & Yuerong Zhang, 2019. "The Association between Urban Public Transport Infrastructure and Social Equity and Spatial Accessibility within the Urban Environment: An Investigation of Tramlink in London," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 11(5), pages 1-18, February.
    9. Kinga Kimic & Karina Ostrysz, 2021. "Assessment of Blue and Green Infrastructure Solutions in Shaping Urban Public Spaces—Spatial and Functional, Environmental, and Social Aspects," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 13(19), pages 1-31, October.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:gam:jsusta:v:11:y:2019:i:12:p:3269-:d:239488. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: MDPI Indexing Manager (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.mdpi.com .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.