Stores and malls buy into ponds and rain gardens for flood control
Extra bonus: These rainy-day ponds clean up dirty water
Next time you go to a mall or a large chain store, such as Walmart, take a look around. Beside the parking lot you may find a pond. Its purpose is not to make the stores look nicer, although the water may indeed look pretty. These ponds are there to help manage water that flows off parking lots when it rains.
Anne Jefferson works at Kent State University in Ohio. There she studies water as it moves through the environment. Of urban rain gardens, she notes, “Once you start looking for them, you can see them all over.”...