Filter strips: Gallery

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  Filter strips between the bioretention and the adjacent parking lot reduce sediment loading to the surface of the bioretention cell. Dennis Ave Health Center, Wheaton, MD. Photo credit: Moreau1

Soil, sand and minerals washed from land into water, usually after rain. They pile up in reservoirs, rivers and harbors, destroying fish-nesting areas and holes of water animals and cloud the water so that needed sunlight might not reach aquatic plans. Careless farming, mining and building activities will expose sediment materials, allowing them to be washed off the land after rainfalls.

The total mass of a pollutant entering a waterbody over a defined time period.

The net amount of something (e.g. chemical, such as phosphorus), calculated as the product of concentration and volume in a given time. Some BMPs significantly reduce loading of pollutants to the environment by reducing volume more so than concentration.

A shallow excavated surface depression containing prepared filter media, mulch, and planted with selected vegetation.