An Integration of Multiple Bioretention Design Manuals and Data Sources to Improve Plant Selection and Outcomes

This paper analyzes a curated, open-access data set of 736 bioretention plant species and demonstrates how incorporating information from the data set can better inform plant selection when designing bioretention basins. The insights will be of use to professionals involved in the planning, design, and regulatory approval of bioretention basins intended to manage urban stormwater. The data and procedure may also be of interest to horticulturalists and citizen scientists. The recommendations can be used to inform plant palettes for installations in the Mid-Atlantic and Midwest regions of the United States along with southern portions of Ontario, Canada. This region was selected because it has broadly consistent climate, soils, land use, geology, and vegetation. The data set combines plant taxa recommendations from five bioretention design manuals previously published in this region, additional information from the PLANTS database maintained by the United States Department of Agriculture, and the National Wetland Plant List maintained by the United States Army Corps of Engineers, as well as a data set of host plants for Lepidoptera (butterfly and moth) larvae. In addition to compiling relevant data from these sources, this work includes information on standardized plant names, semiquantitative environmental tolerance ratings (specifically ponding, drought, and salt tolerance), plant type (woody or herbaceous), and status as native or introduced to North America. The paper concludes by suggesting a procedure professionals can follow to screen the data set for plant taxa that should make bioretention systems more functional and resilient to extreme weather conditions.