Stormwater Biofiltration Systems

As cities develop, more land is converted into impervious surfaces, which do not allow water to infiltrate. Careful urban planning is needed to ensure that the hydrologic cycle and water quality of the catchment areas are not affected. There are techniques that can attenuate peak flow during rain events and reduce the amount of metals, nutrients, and bacteria that enter the urban water cycle. This brief gives a short introduction on bioretention systems and documents the effectiveness of some 36 plant species in removing water pollutants. A summary on the maintenance requirements is also presented.

This book provides a state-of-the-art assessment on a variety of biofiltration water treatment systems from studies conducted around the world. The authors collectively represent a perspective from 23 countries and include academics/researchers, biofiltration system users, designers, and manufacturers. Progress in Slow Sand and Alternative Biofiltration Processes - Further Developments and Applications offers technical information and discussion to provide perspective on the biological and physical factors affecting the performance of slow sand filtration and biological filtration processes. Chapters were submitted from the 5th International Slow Sand and Alternative Biological Filtration Conference, Nagoya, Japan in June 2014. Authors: Nobutada Nakamoto, Shinshu University, Japan, Nigel Graham, Imperial College London, UK, M. Robin Collins, University of New Hampshire, Durham, NH, USA and Rolf Gimbel,Universität Duisburg, Essen, Germany.

The rapid conversion of land to urban and suburban areas has profoundly altered how water flows during and following storm events, putting higher volumes of water and more pollutants into the nation's rivers, lakes, and estuaries. These changes have degraded water quality and habitat in virtually every urban stream system. The Clean Water Act regulatory framework for addressing sewage and industrial wastes is not well suited to the more difficult problem of stormwater discharges. This book calls for an entirely new permitting structure that would put authority and accountability for stormwater discharges at the municipal level. A number of additional actions, such as conserving natural areas, reducing hard surface cover (e.g., roads and parking lots), and retrofitting urban areas with features that hold and treat stormwater, are recommended.

“Green Stormwater Infrastructure for Sustainable Urban and Rural Development” offers some of the latest international scientific and practitioner findings around the adaptation of urban, rural and transportation infrastructures to climate change by sustainable water management. This book addresses the main gaps in the up-to-date literature and provides the reader with a holistic view, ranging from a strategic and multiscale planning, implementation and decision-making angle down to the engineering details for the design, construction, operation and maintenance of green stormwater techniques such as sustainable drainage systems (SuDS) and stormwater control measures (SCMs). This book is particularly recommended for a wide audience of readers, such as academics/researchers and students in the fields of architecture and landscaping, engineering, environmental and natural sciences, social and physical geography and urban and territorial planning. This book is also a resource for practitioners and professionals developing their work in architecture studios, engineering companies, local and regional authorities, water and environmental industries, infrastructure maintenance, regulators, planners, developers and legislators.