Beardsley Zoo Rain Garden
Stormwater runoff is one of the most serious water quality problems facing Long Island Sound. With each rainfall, water runs off roofs and pavement, causing flooding and sewage overflows and carrying pollutants to our rivers and Long Island Sound. One way to correct the problem is to implement Green Infrastructure (GI) techniques. It uses the known benefits of natural systems that provide pollution reduction through the use of soil and vegetation to trap, filter, and infiltrate stormwater.
Rain gardens are landscaped areas that collect and treat stormwater runoff and are an effective low impact development (LID) technique. Rain gardens are usually small in scale and are excavated into native soils without significant soil amendments and do not contain complex drainage systems.