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Plant Surveys of Bioinfiltration Units at the Edison Environmental Center and Implications for Design
Citation:
Oconnor, T. Plant Surveys of Bioinfiltration Units at the Edison Environmental Center and Implications for Design. Stormwater Management Symposium, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, October 16 - 17, 2019.
Impact/Purpose:
This abstract for presentation is part of a series of research products for the bioinfiltration units adjacent to the permeable pavement research and demonstration parking lot at the Edison Environmental Center. The bioinfiltration units were purposefully designed with differing aspect ratios of surface area to watershed area to assess over design versus under design. A prevous plant syudy found that plants in the over designed bioinfiltration units were not as robust as plants in the other units. This current plant survey confirms these findings.
Description:
Bioinfiltration units (BU) designed to evaluate surface area to watershed drainage area by varying aspect ratio of length from inlet were constructed at EPA’s Edison Environmental Center in 2009. BUs are monitored with water content reflectometers (WCR) and thermistors. Native grasses, perennials and shrubs were planted during May and June of 2010 and a shrub survey was performed in late 2012. Published results of the survey and analyses of WCR indicated smaller BUs had superior growth due to more frequent saturation of the root zone, while shrubs in the two largest BUs potentially relied on direct rainfall, especially away from the inlets. A plant survey in 2018 repeated aspects of the 2012 shrub study and surveyed grasses. The recent shrub survey was limited to plants with heights 1.4 m or greater and Basal area measurements through diameter at breast height (DBH), i.e., 1.4 m. Of three grass species originally planted, Indian grass and Bitter panicum were the most dominant. The 2018 survey agrees with the earlier study, indicating most plantings grow better in smaller BUs and closer to inlets, while drought tolerant Bitter panicum dominated the largest BUs away from inlets.