Stormwater Management

These are rain gardens, a key element of stormwater management. Thanks to Peter Schulze-Allen, Emeryville is on the map for early adoption of stormwater management. Stormwater is rainwater that has hit the ground level and is running across primarily impervious surfaces, such as pavement and concrete. It becomes highly polluted with car oils, animal feces, and trash, and drops through storm drains untreated into creeks and the San Francisco Bay. Rain gardens, serve to filter the water and infiltrate it into the soils, where it can be cleaned by soil microbes and plant roots. Wide swaths of concrete paths are flanked with rain gardens here to treat stormwater and reduce stormwater flows.