Increasing interest in urban drainage green infrastructure brings attention to grass swales and filter strips (GS&GFS) and their role in stormwater management. While the understanding of the hydrology and hydraulics of these stormwater control measures is adequate for current needs, there are knowledge gaps in understanding the water quality processes in GS&GFS and such a finding motivated preparation of the review paper that follows. The review revealed that most of the empirical studies of GS&GFS flow quality focused on the removal of pollutants associated with road runoff, and particularly solids, with relatively few studies addressing nutrients, traffic associated hydrocarbons, oxygen demanding substances, chloride, and faecal indicator bacteria. The reported results suffer from limitations caused by experimental conditions often representing a steady flow used to irrigate GS&GFS and generate runoff, non-submerged flows, no lateral inflows along swale side slopes, constant dosing of solids, emphasis on larger-than-typical solids, incomplete descriptions of experimental conditions, and limited attention to experimental uncertainties. Besides settling, other treatment processes, like adsorption/desorption, plant uptake, chemical precipitation and microbial degradation are often acknowledged, but without attempting to quantify their effects on flow quality. The modelling of GS&GFS flow quality would be beneficial for an improved understanding of green urban drainage infrastructure, but currently it is infeasible without a better knowledge of stormwater quality processes in GS&GFS facilities.

Grass swales are important elements of the urban green infrastructure that convey and attenuate urban runoff and improve its quality mostly through stormwater infiltration into, and retention of conveyed pollutants by, swale soils. The retention of metals by grass swales was addressed in this study investigating the enrichment of swale soils by three common traffic-related metals: Cu, Pb and Zn. Three swales of various characteristics (L1, L2, L3) were selected for study and their soils were sampled by coring the top 30 cm and dividing the cores into 5 cm thick layers. Cumulative metal burdens were compared to those modelled by the proprietary StormTac Web model, which estimates annual loads of specific constituents for the given land uses and stormwater treatment. The comparisons of measured (MBm) and simulated (MBs) metal burdens retained by swales showed that the measured values exceed the simulated ones, as described by average ratios MBs/MBm = 0.64, 0.50 and 0.59, for swales L1, L2 and L3, respectively. The measured burdens were calculated after subtracting the native soil metal concentrations, assumed equal to those found in the deepest sampled layer, 25–30 cm below the surface. The results suggest the feasibility of assessing performance of grass swales by modelling metal (Cu, Pb, Zn) retention by swales, however for older facilities considered for rehabilitation, the simulated results should be supplemented by soil chemistry sampling.

Enrichment of soils in three urban drainage swales by metals associated with traffic sources was investigated in a cool temperate climate with seasonal snow. Such swales differed from those not exposed to snow by receiving additional pollutant loads from winter road maintenance involving applications of salt and grit, use of studded tires, and storage and melting of polluted snow cleared from trafficked areas into swales. Among the swales studied, swale L2 in the downtown was the oldest (built around 1960), drained runoff from a road with the highest traffic intensity, and exhibited the highest mean concentrations of most of the metals studied (Pb, Cu, Zn, Cr, Cd, Ni, Co, V, Ti, and W). In the case of Pb, this exceedance was about an order of magnitude: 71 mg/kg DW in L2, compared to about ~8 mg/kg DW in L1 and L3, both built in 1979. Among the metals originating from local geology, barium (Ba) was found in the swales and the grit material at high concentrations of ~650 mg/kg DW and 700–1000 mg/kg DW, respectively. Such concentrations exceeded the Swedish EPA guideline limits of 300 mg/kg DW for less sensitive soil use. The sequential extraction analysis of samples from swale L2 indicated that Ba was mostly in the immobile residual fraction (90%). The absence of clear decline in metal concentrations with distance from the trafficked surfaces suggested that stored snow was another source of metals partly balancing spatial distribution of metals in swale soils.

Stormwater ponds are widely used for controlling runoff quality through the sedimentation of particles and associated pollutants. Their maintenance requires regular removal and disposal of accumulated material. This necessitates an assessment of material hazardousness, including potential hazard due to its contamination by metals. Here we analyze 32 stormwater pond sediment samples from 17 facilities using several chemical analysis methods (total extraction, sequential extraction, diffusive gradients in thin-films DGT, and pore water extraction) in order to consider the complementarity and comparability of the different approaches. No clear relationship was found between analyses that have the potential to measure similar metal fractions (DGT and either fraction 1 of the sequential extraction (adsorbed and exchangeable metals and carbonates) or pore water concentrations). Loss on ignition (LOI) had a significant positive correlation with an indicator of the environmental risk developed in this paper (∑ranks) that incorporates different metals, speciations, and environmental endpoints. Large variations in metal levels were observed between ponds. As clustering was limited between the different analyses, a comprehensive analysis of different parameters is still needed to fully understand metal speciation and bioavailability.

Urban stormwater typically enters sewer networks through gully pots, which allow a primary sedimentation of solids upstream of the piped network. The regular removal and disposal of retained sediment are necessary, costly and can involve environmental risks due to the contamination of sediments with substances from the urban environment such as metals. The concentrations and speciation of Cd, Cr, Cu, Ni, Pb and Zn were analysed in sediments from 26 gully pots located in different land use areas in Stockholm, Sweden. In addition, accumulation rates of both sediment and metal masses were evaluated, providing a basis for optimising maintenance practices and better understanding of impacts of characteristic urban land use types. Metal concentrations varied by at most a factor of eight between samples and were always below Swedish polluted site guidelines for less sensitive land use, with only eight samples exceeding the guideline values for Cu and Zn for sensitive land use. Sequential extraction showed Pb and Zn to be the most mobile metals. Sediment accumulation rates varied from 0.003 to 0.197 kg/m2 impermeable surface/year. Metal accumulation rates were much more variable than metal concentrations, with a factor of up to 172 between the highest and lowest rates and the highest metal accumulation rates corresponding to the lower range of mass loads in road runoff. Differences in metal concentrations, sediment or metal mass accumulations could not be solely attributed to either traffic or catchment land use. In contrast, traction grit used for winter road maintenance, which has low (but detectable) metal concentrations, is identified as a major component of gully pot sediments, with a combined effect of both moderating metal concentrations and contributing to total mass.