Bioswales

From Swikipedia

Introduction

Bioswale is a technology that uses plants and soil and/or compost to retain and cleanse runoff from a site, roadway, or other source. They are basically landscape elements, designed to remove silt and pollution from surface runoff water. They consist of a swaled drainage course with gently sloped sides (less than six percent) and filled with vegetation, compost. The water's flow path, along with the wide and shallow ditch, is designed to maximize the time water spends in the swale, which aids the trapping of pollutants and silt. Depending upon the geometry of land available, a bioswale may have a meandering or almost straight channel alignment. Biological factors also contribute to the breakdown of certain pollutants.

Brief Description

Bioswales are often created around parking lots, where substantial automotive pollution is collected by the paving and then flushed by rain. The bioswale, or other type of biofilter, wraps around the parking lot and treats the runoff before releasing it to the watershed or storm sewer.

Applications:

 Around parking lots

 Residential roadside swales

 Highway Medians

 Landscape buffs

Benefits:

 Bioswales treat water quality using soil, vegetation and microbes

 They reduce the total volume of storm-water run-off

 They result in increased infiltration and ground-water recharge

 Bioswales can be an aesthetic part of landscape and thereby, improve bio-diversity

References:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bioswale