Bioretention systems for stormwater management: Recent advances and future prospects

Area of Science:

• Environmental Engineering
• Urban Hydrology
• Water Resource Management

Background:

• Bioretention is a key urban stormwater management strategy using engineered systems with vegetation.
• Current bioretention designs often fail due to reliance on guidelines from climatically dissimilar regions.
• Limited global research contributions lead to widespread application of non-localized designs.

Purpose of the Study:

• Critically analyze recent bioretention research findings.
• Identify knowledge gaps and propose future research directions.
• Provide insights for improving bioretention technology and sustainable stormwater management.

Main Methods:

• Comprehensive review of recent bioretention literature.
• Analysis of bioretention components, design, and performance.
• Discussion of laboratory, field, and modeling studies.

Main Results:

• Bioretention system performance is highly dependent on local climatic and environmental conditions.
• Fundamental investigations and real-time process control are critical for effective bioretention.
• Life cycle assessment and adaptive design strategies are needed for full-scale systems.

Conclusions:

• Emphasizes the critical need to tailor bioretention designs to local conditions for operational success.
• Highlights key research gaps in understanding fundamental processes and real-time control.
• Recommends integrated approaches, including local adaptation and life cycle assessment, for sustainable stormwater management.