Initial impacts of rain gardens’ application on water quality and quantity in combined sewer: field-scale experiment

Highlights

Impacts of rain gardens on stormwater were evaluated through field monitoring.

Statistical analysis is vital to evaluate field collected data.

Due to rain gardens, pollutant levels increased initially, but decreasedover time.

E. colilevel decreasedfrom the beginning after rain gardens were installed.

Rain gardens could result in 76% stormwaterreduction in affected combined sewers.

Abstract

Green infrastructures such as rain gardens can benefit onsite reduction of stormwater runoff, leading to reduced combined sewer overflows. A pilot project was conducted to evaluate the impact of rain gardens on the water quality and volume reduction of storm runoff from urban streets in a combined sewer area. The study took place in a six-block area on South Grand Boulevard in St. Louis, Missouri. The impact was assessed through a comparison between the pre-construction (2011/2012) and the post-construction (2014) phases. Shortly after the rain gardens were installed, the levels of total suspended solids, chloride, total nitrogen, total phosphorous, zinc, and copper increased. The level of mercury was lower than the detection level in both phases. E. coliwas the only parameter that showed statistically significant decrease following the installation of rain gardens. The likely reason for initial increase in monitored water quality parameters is that the post-construction sampling began after the rain gardens were constructed but before planting, resulted from soil erosion and wash-out from the mulch. However, the levels of most of water quality parameters decreased in the following time period during the post-construction phase. The study found 76% volume reduction of stormwater runoff following the installation of rain gardens at one of studied sites. Statistical analysis is essential on collected data because of the encountered high variability of measured flows resulted from low flow conditions in studied sewers.

Graphical abstract

Keywords

Rain gardens / Bioretention / Combined sewer / Stormwater quality and quantity

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Acknowledgements

The project was funded through the East–west Gateway Council of Governments (EWG, project number G11-NPS-04) by the Missouri Department of Natural Resources (MoDNR) under a 319 program from USEPA Region VII. Southern Illinois University Edwardsville (SIUE) provided support and cost-sharing towards this study. The study team thanks Mr. David Wilson of EWG for initiating and guiding this study, Mr. Brian Gibson of Metropolitan St. Louis Sewer District (MSD) for supporting and coordinating water quality sample collection, and Mr. Dave Hirsch for MSD’s supporting the quality assurance work. Mr. John Grimm and Mr. Kyle Winkelman coordinated MSD’s supply of flow and rainfall data. Ms. Azadeh Akhavan Bloorchian, a SIUE graduate student, and Mr. Philip Kreisman, a SIUE undergraduate student, assisted on the project.

Electronic Supplementary Material

ƒSupplementary material is available in the online version of this article at http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s11783-017-0988-5and is accessible for authorized users.

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