Bioretention for stormwater quality improvement in Texas : pilot experiments.

Details

• Creators:
  Li, Ming-Han ; Sung, Chan Yong ; Kim, Myung Hee ; Chu, Kung-Hui
• Corporate Creators:
  Texas Transportation Institute
• Corporate Contributors:
  Texas. Dept. of Transportation ; United States. Federal Highway Administration
• Subject/TRT Terms:
  • Storm sewers
  • Runoff
  • Storm sewers--Texas
  • Urban runoff--Texas--Management
• Publication/ Report Number:
  FHWA/TX-10/0-5949-2
• Resource Type:
  Tech Report
• Geographical Coverage:
  Texas
• Edition:
  Technical report; Sept. 2007¿Oct. 2009.
• Corporate Publisher:
  Texas Transportation Institute
• Abstract:
  This report summarizes the results of pilot-scale bioretention experiments. Five steel boxes of 6 ft (L) × 6 ft ; (W) × 4 ft (D) were constructed, each of which has a different type of vegetation: (1) shrubs, (2) grass ; species in Texas Department of Transportation (TxDOT) Bryan District seed mix, (3) native grasses, (4) ; Bermudagrass, and (5) no vegetation as the control. Vegetation was given 14 months to establish before ; testing. Synthetic runoff containing predetermined pollutants with target concentrations was used. The ; results indicate that pilot bioretentions effectively removed zinc (Zn), lead (Pb), total suspended solids ; (TSS), and ammonia-nitrogen (NH3-N) from stormwater runoff, but exported copper (Cu), nitrate-nitrogen ; (NO3-N), total nitrogen (TN), and total phosphorus (TP). Vegetation plays an important role on NO3-N and ; TN removals due to root uptake and the denitrification processes in root zone. However, vegetation could ; negatively affect the water quality if the soil infiltration rate is significantly increased by its root system. ; This effect was specifically obvious on the TSS removal, in which the control box with the longest detention ; time had much better performance than the vegetated boxes. The results suggest that bioretention is useful to ; treat stormwater runoff from TxDOT highways, but the design specifications developed in other states ; should be revised to reflect Texas’ unique climate and environmental conditions. Challenges and learned ; l essons are described in the report.
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• Format:
  PDF
• Funding:
  0-5949
• Download URL:
  https://rosap.ntl.bts.gov/view/dot/18308/dot_18308_DS1.pdf
• File Type:
  [PDF - 1.31 MB]
• Collection(s):
  US Transportation Collection
• Main Document Checksum:
  urn:sha256:8d7001858fd4cfcef30520c4420e98c8fc4a0cb0e5171d6ff6289eba61a33f26