Catchment “greening” using stormwater in Adelaide, South Australia

Abstract

The paper reviews the goals of stormwater management adopted in Adelaide and declares a focus on harvesting of stormwater to replace mains water in irrigating areas landscaped with grass, flower beds and shrubs. Four categories of catchments are recognised according to their levels of pollution production - roof runoff and “low”, “medium” and “high” pollution runoff surfaces. Four case study examples of systems involving appropriate treatment trains are described, each one delivering harvested stormwater suitable for irrigation. Two examples are given of large roof areas draining to gravel-filled trenches providing “passive” irrigation to grassed surfaces and two examples of runoff from ground-level surfaces supplying cleansed recharge to small aquifer storage/recovery schemes.

Urban nitrogen biogeochemistry: status and processes in green retention basins

“…Moreover, water is a valuable resource in arid and semiarid regions. In some cities, runoff water is therefore actively collected and stored, and later reused for maintaining city lawns, thus simultaneously providing flood peak reduction, pollution control, and improved amenities (Argue and Pezzaniti 1999).…”

Rainwater Storage Gutters for Houses

“…When there is no blockage the stormwater picks up considerable kinetic energy through its swift passage down the pipe system and often results in erosion damage at the outlet point into a natural waterway. As a consequence of these effects, modern urban stormwater design seeks to slow down the passage of water through the system by such means as detention ponds, rock baffles and restoring streamside vegetation [4]. In Australia, due to rainfall variability and to state government incentive schemes, there has been a significant and accelerating trend towards including rainwater collection devices in both old and new suburban areas [5,6].…”

Integrated treatment and recycling of stormwater: a review of Australian practice

“…Davison, 2001), and combined sewer systems (Field et al, 2000), have focussed on geographically small areas (e.g. Argue and Pezzaniti, 1999), or on a single type of recycling such as for irrigation or infiltration purposes only (e.g. Al-Hoti and Abdullah, 1989).…”