BP8 - Reduce pollutant sources

Riparian buffers are areas of land, predominantly covered with trees, shrubs, and sometimes grasses, along, and often up-gradient from, streams, watercourses, or water bodies. These natural or restored buffers serve multiple purposes. By maintaining a relatively undisturbed zone adjacent to open water, they play an important role in water quality and flow...

Green roofs are multi-layered systems that cover the roof of a building with vegetation and/or green landscaping over a drainage layer. There are two types of green roof: 

• Extensive green roofs cover...

A floodplain is the area bordering a river that naturally provides space for the retention of flood and rainwater.  Because of regular flooding, floodplain soils are generally very fertile and they have often been dried-out to be used as agricultural land. Floodplains in many places have also been separated from the river by dikes, berms or other structures designed to control the flow of the...

Rain gardens are defined as small-scale vegetated gardens used for storage and infiltration. The term ‘rain garden’ is often used interchangeably with ‘bioretention area’ (although the latter could also be applied more loosely to other measures such as filter strips or swales). 

Green cover, cover crops or catch crops refers to crops planted in late summer or autumn, usually on arable land, to protect the soil, which would otherwise lie bare during the winter, against wind and water erosion.  Green cover crops also improve the structure of the soil, diversify the cropping system, and mitigate the loss of soluble nutrients. Green cover crops are good...

Crop rotation is the practice of growing a series of dissimilar or different types, species, or families of crops in the same area in sequential seasons. Judiciously applied (i.e. selecting a suitable crop) crop rotation can improve soil structure and fertility by alternating deep-rooted and shallow-rooted plants. In turn, this enhances the soil’s sponge-like behaviour by improving structural properties, fostering root-driven...