Rain gardens can be combined with urban planning strategies to increase urban resilience.
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| Title: | Rain gardens can be combined with urban planning strategies to increase urban resilience. |
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| Authors: | Chen, Chi-Feng1 (AUTHOR) cfchen@ntut.edu.tw, Chen, Yi-Wei1 (AUTHOR), Lin, Jen-Yang1 (AUTHOR) |
| Source: | Landscape & Ecological Engineering. Oct2025, Vol. 21 Issue 4, p813-827. 15p. |
| Subject Terms: | *Rain gardens, *Urban planning, *Water storage, *Sustainable urban development, *Flood damage prevention, *Climate change adaptation, *Transit-oriented development |
| Geographic Terms: | Taipei (Taiwan), Taiwan |
| Abstract: | A rain garden is a low-lying garden where runoff from drainage areas is collected. Owing to their environmental benefits, the appropriate and wide use of rain gardens in urban areas can increase city resilience. In this study, data from real rain gardens were collected to quantify their water retention ability. Taiwan's Climate Change Administration, Ministry of Environment, constructed 14 rain gardens in different cities as pilot climate change adaptation facilities. These rain gardens are equipped with an underground tank to store rainwater for irrigation use, and real-time monitoring data are collected to quantify their performance. The rain gardens provided an overall water retention rate of nearly 100%, an average water retention rate of 10% in the storage tanks, and an infiltration rate of 90% into the natural systems. An urban planning strategy, namely, transit-oriented development (TOD), was suggested as an effective measure combined with rain gardens to achieve city resilience. The TOD policy encourages city development centered on public transportation stations to reduce transportation resource needs and enhance land utility. It is suggested that public land surrounding mass rapid transit (MRT) stations can be used for constructing rain gardens. The integration of rain gardens and the TOD policy represents a win‒win scenario. If rain gardens were built in 10% of public land within 500 m of MRT stations in Taipei, Taichung, and Kaohsiung cities in Taiwan, they could store 47,912 to 710,803 m3 of rainwater annually as irrigation water and retain 2,672,334 to 10,941,291 m3 in the environment without ponding on the land surface. In other words, rain gardens can provide irrigation water for 85.3 km2 of plants annually and reduce the annual runoff volume by 16% in the study area. These findings suggest that rain gardens can serve as rainwater harvesting and flood mitigation facilities in urban areas. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR] |
| Database: | Energy & Power Source |
| Abstract: | A rain garden is a low-lying garden where runoff from drainage areas is collected. Owing to their environmental benefits, the appropriate and wide use of rain gardens in urban areas can increase city resilience. In this study, data from real rain gardens were collected to quantify their water retention ability. Taiwan's Climate Change Administration, Ministry of Environment, constructed 14 rain gardens in different cities as pilot climate change adaptation facilities. These rain gardens are equipped with an underground tank to store rainwater for irrigation use, and real-time monitoring data are collected to quantify their performance. The rain gardens provided an overall water retention rate of nearly 100%, an average water retention rate of 10% in the storage tanks, and an infiltration rate of 90% into the natural systems. An urban planning strategy, namely, transit-oriented development (TOD), was suggested as an effective measure combined with rain gardens to achieve city resilience. The TOD policy encourages city development centered on public transportation stations to reduce transportation resource needs and enhance land utility. It is suggested that public land surrounding mass rapid transit (MRT) stations can be used for constructing rain gardens. The integration of rain gardens and the TOD policy represents a win‒win scenario. If rain gardens were built in 10% of public land within 500 m of MRT stations in Taipei, Taichung, and Kaohsiung cities in Taiwan, they could store 47,912 to 710,803 m3 of rainwater annually as irrigation water and retain 2,672,334 to 10,941,291 m3 in the environment without ponding on the land surface. In other words, rain gardens can provide irrigation water for 85.3 km2 of plants annually and reduce the annual runoff volume by 16% in the study area. These findings suggest that rain gardens can serve as rainwater harvesting and flood mitigation facilities in urban areas. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR] |
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| ISSN: | 18601871 |
| DOI: | 10.1007/s11355-025-00678-1 |
