How Rain Gardens Make Streets Greener & Reduce Flooding

How a series of a hybrid of street-side eddy backwater basins and flow-through basins harvest street runoff in BOTH low & BIG flow events, while also controlling erosion with hand-built one-rock-high structures such as the one-rock dam / rock-mulch rundown hybrids that act as grade-control structures at the upstream inlet of each basin.

The passively harvested rainwater and street runoff irrigates the native food plant forest for free. New plantings are given supplemental irrigation once per week for the first year after planting to get them established. After that, the passively harvested water will be all they get.

This INDIRECTLY recharges the groundwater, by not extracting from it (once plants are established),
and DIRECTLY recharges the groundwater as surplus harvested stormwater infiltrates beyond the filtering roots and associated soil life to eventually directly recharge the groundwater.

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CHAPTERS
0:00 Intro
0:45 How in BIG flow events street runoff flows OVER the street curb, and would erode soil PRE-rain gardens
1:09 Rain garden solution with stepped street-side eddy basins
1:19 4-inch (100-mm) diameter curb core directs stormwater runoff from LOW events into basins
1:24 How to avoid/address clogging of curb core
2:00 How these basins are a hybrid of eddy basins and flow-through basins to address big and low flow events at this unique site
3:06 water infiltration within basins and basin overflow channels
3:20 grade-control one-rock dam/rock-mulch rundown hybrids at the inlet of every basin
4:09 NO water-infiltration-impeding rock is used in basin bottoms, nor to line water channel
4:49 Rock baffle protects downstream utility boxes and directs surplus water back to street
5:23 Planting of basins with food-bearing native plants
5:35 Planting rain-irrigated native shade trees to shade and cool the street and sidewalk
6:17 Enticing neighbors to join our rainwater-harvesting efforts with our example
6:44 More resources

FOR ALL THE DETAILS ON HOW TO PLACE, DESIGN, AND BUILD ONE-ROCK-HIGH EROSION CONTROLLING WATER-HARVESTING STRUCTURES WITHIN WATER CHANNELS see:
Chapter 10 of the new full-color edition of "Rainwater Harvesting for Drylands and Beyond, Volume 2: Water-Harvesting Earthworks"
https://www.harvestingrainwater.com/product/rainwater-harvesting-for-drylands-and-beyond-volume-2-3rd-edition-new-2019/

FOR STREET-RUNOFF-HARVESTING CURB CUTS, CURB CORES, AND EDDY BASINS see:
chapter 8 of of "Rainwater Harvesting for Drylands and Beyond, Volume 2: Water-Harvesting Earthworks"
and
https://www.harvestingrainwater.com/water-harvesting/harvests-of-different-waters/stormwater-street-runoff-harvesting/

MORE INFO ON PLANTING PROJECT FEATURED IN THIS VIDEO:
https://dunbarspringneighborhoodforesters.org/2025/05/annual-rain-native-food-forest-plantings-another-success-in-2025/

SEE THE MANY FREE WATER-HARVESTING RESOURCES AT:
https://www.harvestingrainwater.com/

FOR INFO ON OUR RAIN-IRRIGATED NATIVE FOOD FORESTRY see:
https://dunbarspringneighborhoodforesters.org/

ROCKWORK SEEN IN THE VIDEO WAS DONE BY DRYLAND DESIGN
https://www.drylanddesign.com/

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Work & planting done spring 2025.
Video filmed July, 2025.
West University neighborhood, Tucson, Arizona
where we receive an average of 11 inches (280mm) of rain per year.

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