The Council verge as the next wetland: TREENET and the cities of Mitcham and Salisbury investigate

Spatial pressures in many contemporary cities restrict the construction of surface wetlands of the scales necessary to deliver storm water management and ecosystem services. Alternative means are able to deliver some of these services by harvesting storm water at source and storing it in soils beneath road verges where it can irrigate urban trees and other vegetation. By incorporating vegetation into this storm water management infrastructure both water harvesting rates and storage capacities can be increased. If integrated with street infrastructure on a large scale, water sensitive urban design features and associated vegetation have the potential to make major contributions to improved human health, environmental quality and flood risk mitigation. Infrastructure established to support preliminary investigations in the cities of Mitcham and Salisbury has demonstrated problem-free function of storm water harvesting for street tree irrigation at the local level over seven years.