Due to climate change, retention basins along highways and overly drained neighborhoods have multiplied over the past twenty years. The civil engineering behind their design focused on their capacity, efficiency, costs and construction techniques but rarely on their ecological potential.
Professor Poulin’s team from Laval University compared the plant communities of 20 retention basins located along four roads in Quebec with those of 20 wetlands located near these basins and 20 wetlands located far from the roads.
Although the plant composition of the ponds is very similar to that found in natural wetlands adjacent to or distant from the road, it decreases as one moves away from the banks of the ponds.
“By creating sinuous banks around the aquatic zone of the basin rather than a regular bank and by reducing the slope of the embankment, we would significantly increase the surface area on which wetland plants can settle,” suggests Professor Poulin. We could also use these environments as nurseries to grow plants that could be used in wetland restoration projects.”
In short, with minor changes in their layout, we can substantially increase their biological diversity.
For the full article: Motorway retention basins: infrastructures that could give nature a boost
Illustration: Pierre-Alexandre Bergeron D’Aoust
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