Supporting Growth and Transpiration of Newly Planted Street Trees With Passive Irrigation Systems

Solutions that use stormwater runoff to rapidly establish tree canopy cover in cities have received significant attention. Passive irrigation systems that direct stormwater to trees have the potential to increase growth and transpiration and may limit drought stress. However, little data from the field demonstrates this, and we lack robust and reliable designs which achieve it. Here, we quantified growth and transpiration for trees: (a) in infiltration pits receiving stormwater, with a raised underdrain and internal water storage (drained), (b) next to infiltration pits receiving stormwater but without an underdrain and internal water storage (adjacent), and (c) planted in standard pits, not receiving stormwater (control). Trees in drained pits grew twice as fast as control trees in the first 2 years, but fast initial growth rates were not sustained in years three and four. Trees outgrowing the small infiltration pits, rather than a lack of water, was most likely responsible for growth rates slowing down. Despite this, rapid initial growth for trees in drained pits meant trees were larger by year three and transpired more than twice as much (5.1 L d(-1)) as trees adjacent to pits (2.4 L d(-1)) or control trees (2.3 L d(-1)). No trees showed drought stress during the study. However, some trees planted adjacent to infiltration pits showed waterlogging stress, suggesting caution installing infiltration pits adjacent to establishing trees in fine-textured soils. Overall, our results suggest passive irrigation systems can substantially increase initial tree growth, thereby facilitating greater cooling and runoff reduction through increased transpiration.

Automated summary

Passive irrigation systems that use stormwater runoff can significantly increase initial tree growth, enhance transpiration, and reduce drought stress.