Catchment “greening” using stormwater in Adelaide, South Australia

The paper reviews the goals of stormwater management adopted in Adelaide and declares a focus on harvesting of stormwater to replace mains water in irrigating areas landscaped with grass, flower beds and shrubs. Four categories of catchments are recognised according to their levels of pollution production - roof runoff and “low”, “medium” and “high” pollution runoff surfaces. Four case study examples of systems involving appropriate treatment trains are described, each one delivering harvested stormwater suitable for irrigation. Two examples are given of large roof areas draining to gravel-filled trenches providing “passive” irrigation to grassed surfaces and two examples of runoff from ground-level surfaces supplying cleansed recharge to small aquifer storage/recovery schemes.