Hydrologic and pollutant removal performance of stormwater biofiltration systems at the field scale

Abstract

Biofiltration systems are a recommended and increasingly popular technology for stormwater management; however there is a general lack of performance data for these systems, particularly at the field scale. The objective of this study was to investigate the hydrologic and pollutant removal performance of three field-scale biofiltration systems in two different climates. Biofilters were shown to effectively attenuate peak runoff flow rates by at least 80%. Performance assessment of a lined biofilter demonstrated that retention of inflow volumes by the filter media, for subsequent loss via evapotranspiration, reduced runoff volumes by 33% on average. Retention of water was found to be most inf..