Residential Rain Garden Performance in the Climate Zones of the Contiguous United States
Publication: Journal of Environmental Engineering
Volume 142, Issue 12
Abstract
Rain gardens are one of the technologies often recommended for residential stormwater management. It is not difficult to find rain garden design recommendations, but more difficult to find quantitative assessments of how effective these gardens are at reducing runoff. Analysis is presented to illustrate how well a common rain garden design would work when subjected to the hydrological and meteorological extremes experienced across the contiguous United States. Results of 3-year hourly continuous simulations indicate that, because of variations in the amount and pattern of precipitation, the effectiveness of comparable rain gardens would vary from about 51.3 to 99.8% across the contiguous United States. Identical gardens would be least effective in Atlantic and Gulf Coast states and most effective in northern Midwest and Mountain states. Results also indicate garden evapotranspiration and evaporation have a negligible impact () on runoff reductions. This is true even for the warm, sunny climates of southwestern states. Results also indicate that, if common design recommendations on minimum infiltration rates are followed, it would be unlikely for standing water to persist in gardens long enough for mosquitoes to breed.
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Acknowledgments
The author gratefully acknowledges the contributions of Alexandra Litofsky and Kimberly Baker for advancing the quantitative analysis of rain barrels and infiltration galleries, and of Michael Burger and James Hale for the design and implementation of the rain garden continuous simulation method used to generate these results.
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Journal of Environmental Engineering
Volume 142 • Issue 12 • December 2016
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© 2016 American Society of Civil Engineers.
History
Received: Nov 5, 2015
Accepted: Apr 13, 2016
Published online: Jul 12, 2016
Published in print: Dec 1, 2016
Discussion open until: Dec 12, 2016
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