Mitigating the effects of current climate issues on land and water quality is daunting in the least as urbanization and commercial farming work counter effectively. A flicker of will to do something has drifted across every person’s mind at one point of time, but is shut down as soon as the scale of the problem is apparent. Suddenly, any effort seems too small. This problem, though seemingly massive and notorious and complicated, has solutions that have existed for thousands of years and it just requires a little bit of digging into history.
Looking back in history, the trend of land degradation and consequentially water contamination began in the 1950s-1960s during the Green Revolution. This was a period of mass, mechanized farming where poor irrigation techniques led to massive water loss in evaporation and runoff water. Runoff water carries the nutrients and salts that are abundant in topsoil and deposits this excess of nutrients into a larger body of water like a lake or pond, causing eutrophication or algal blooms that eventually result in hypoxia or low oxygen levels that could destroy the entire ecosystem. As urbanization increased, the soil became covered with nonporous asphalt and concrete to create roads, parking lots, sidewalks, and basically all navigable land in the modern day. This accelerated runoff a lot more. Before reaching a body of water, the runoff ends up in gutters either directly through pipes of infrastructure or through drainage outlets on the road. Then, mixed with sewage and a vast variety of other pollutants, the water reaches wastewater treatment facilities. Worded simply, they use expensive technologies that require pure oxygen to break down pollutants and as much as 10 liters of water per liter of wastewater purified. Though this will eventually become biofuel, the resulting wastewater still has high concentrations of sugars, fermentation residues, and chemical byproducts. So the problem is reduced, not solved. Additionally, leaks in underground sewage pipelines risk contamination of groundwater and aquifers that serve as clean drinking water for all surrounding communities. And even with new technologies that increase the effectiveness of the treatment, many are not widely applied yet, so the reuse capacity of the treated water is still limited.
However, one promising method of decreasing runoff and increasing land and water quality is reforestation. Cost-effective reforestation blocks the urban heat island effect and creates habitats for native species; Trees naturally store and actively retain carbon dioxide and pump out oxygen, counteracting the dense air pollution clouds hovering over cities as a result of concentrated industrial practices (urban heat island). Additionally, trees grip soil with its roots, preventing erosion from runoff water, as most water is infiltrated. However, this dense vegetation is also problematic, as it decreases recreation area and land value for owners of the land. It also serves as a niche for pests if the vegetation is not properly maintained. Therefore, in suburban environments, especially with increased risk of windstorms, trees can pose a hazard to public infrastructure.
This reason plays a large part in why the reforestation movement is supported on the poster but not always in the environment. Certain landscapes are just not safe to plant trees like cramped backyard spaces or thin lines of grass near the sidewalk. However there is a solution that functions just as well as a tree but takes up less space and is beautifully versatile - rain gardens.
Rain gardens, just like its name, retain ‘rain’ or less appealingly, wastewater before the water becomes runoff. They are landscaped, shallow depressions in land that capture and infiltrate the water near its source. These depressions are then soiled with mulch as well as compost and planted using the excess nutrients in your banana rinds and egg shells a little more efficiently than landfills do! Another reason why rain gardens are so effective is because they percolate stormwater naturally - as the water falls through porous soil, it is naturally filtered by plants that uptake excess nutrients while sediment is deposited in the soil. The water eventually replenishes aquifers deep underground through a process called groundwater recharge. Through softwares like HydroCAD, stormwater pathways can be modeled before implementation even though rain gardens have proven to be successful.
In fact in New Jersey -one of top 15 rainiest states in the U.S- there is on average 44 inches’ of rainfall per year and rain gardens can treat an astonishing 41.8 inches of it meaning if rain gardens are utilized in full capacity only about 2 inches of rain would fill the sewers. The average drainage area is 1,312 ft, so a single rain garden can treat 34,350 gallons per year. With 30 rain gardens, over 1,000,000 gallons of water is recharged every year! To put into perspective, this ‘recharged’ water has 90% less suspended solids, 60% less phosphorus, and 30% less total nitrogen. Even in the entire cycle of creating the rain garden, materials that must be deconstructed are recycled and incorporated in the rain garden. The downspout pipe of your house that connects to the sewer pipeline can be used as an extension to connect to the rain garden. If pavement must be removed to make room for the rain garden, the same pavement can be broken into smaller rocks and used as inlet barriers to reduce the velocity of incoming water into the rain garden. Lastly, native soil dug out to create the hole can be used to refine the slope into the base of the rain garden.
In all seriousness, the rain garden is so diverse that each section of it receives a different amount of water. This means that a variety of plants can grow in each section. According to a recent study published by the Rutgers New Jersey Environmental Experiment Station, the base, or innermost area, can host crops that live in flooded conditions - these include a plethora of swampy wool grasses, vibrant purple New England Asters, and dense Winterberries. The slope into the base of the garden can host plants that can live in both wet and dry conditions such as Bluejoint grass, Cardinal flowers, and Pine Oak trees. Finally, the outer zone or the buffer zone accommodates plants that can live in dry conditions like the Indian grass, Black-eyed Susan flowers, and the classic American Holly.
From problem to utility, rain gardens truly allow water to go in a full circle. As stated by the Rutgers Cooperative Extension, less water in sewers means less sewage water impairing the normal function of water bodies. New Jersey schools, starting from elementary, have already taken initiative and are building rain gardens in old, empty courtyards and parking lots. This is possible mostly because New Jersey law dedicated 11.6 billion dollars for the installation of rain gardens near public schools but now that this natural solution is gaining popularity many other states are also providing funding. School grounds are great starting points also because they teach youth the importance of managing wastewater, allow for innovative, interdisciplinary lessons, and because schools are visible and accessible to the rest of the community. As kids get involved, the entire community gets involved - numerous schools in NJ like Greater Brunswick Charter School, Zane North Elementary, Hamilton High School West, Tabernacle Middle School, Woods Road Elementary, and Ethel Jacobsen Elementary are inspiration to the entire community as they have successfully rain gardens showing us that we can do it too!
Thus, rain gardens are truly transformative as they utilize natural methods to increase land and water quality. While more efficient technologies are being developed, rain gardens put the tool for change in the present in the hands of the community. As President Obama once said, “Change will not come if we wait for some other person or other time. We are the ones we have been waiting for. We are the change that we seek.”