Rain Garden

Rain gardens, also called bioretention facilities, are one of a variety of practices designed to increase reabsorption of rain runoff by the soil. They can also be used to treat polluted stormwater runoff. Rain gardens are designed landscape sites that reduce the flow rate, total quantity, and pollutant load of runoff from impervious urban areas like roofs, driveways, walkways, parking lots, and compacted lawn areas.

Rain gardens rely on plants and natural or engineered soil medium to retain stormwater and increase the lag time of infiltration, while remediating and filtering pollutants carried by urban runoff.
Rain gardens provide a method to reuse and optimize any rain that falls, reducing or avoiding the need for additional irrigation.
A benefit of planting rain gardens is the consequential decrease in ambient air and water temperature, a mitigation that is especially effective in urban areas containing an abundance of impervious surfaces that absorb heat in a phenomenon known as the heat-island effect.

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Source: Wikipedia · Image: Wikimedia Commons · CC BY 2.0