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Stormwater ponds can contain comparable biodiversity to unmanaged wetlands in urban areas

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Abstract

Urban freshwaters provide a range of ecosystem services, including stormwater management, water treatment, biodiversity, and aesthetics. Management of freshwaters should aim to maximise as many of these services as possible, but managers are often focused on individual services. To test for the biodiversity value of stormwater management ponds (SMPs) in Ottawa, Canada, 20 SMPs were surveyed for macroinvertebrates using standardised sampling techniques. These were compared against 10 wetlands that were not managed for stormwater control (a combination of ornamental lakes, natural lakes, and nature reserves) in and around the same urban area (a total of 30 ponds). Natural wetlands and SMPs were very different in their water chemistry, which was correlated with the proportion of urban land use within 1 km of the site, with higher conductivity in SMPs with increasing urban land cover (P = 0.046). Despite this, natural wetlands and the richest SMPs contained similar levels of biodiversity and similar macroinvertebrate community structure. This study highlights that stormwater management can occur alongside biodiversity enhancement in urban areas, but correlations between urban land use, water chemistry, and the structure of biological communities suggests that run-off from urban areas is likely a major factor in structuring biological communities in built-up regions.

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Acknowledgments

The study was funded by the Hugh Carey Gilson Award from the Freshwater Biological Association. The manuscript was greatly improved thanks to comments by Beat Oertli and two anonymous reviewers. The authors would also like to thank Chris Melanson at the City of Ottawa for provision of data and permission to access sites, and Tom Sherratt for logistical support. CH was supported by an Ontario Ministry of Research and Innovation Postdoctoral Fellowship.

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  1. School of Biology, University of Leeds, Woodhouse Lane, Leeds, LS2 9JT, UK

    Christopher Hassall

  2. School of Environmental Science, Carleton University, 1125 Colonel By Drive, Ottawa, K1R 5B6, Canada

    Sarah Anderson

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Correspondence to Christopher Hassall.

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Hassall, C., Anderson, S. Stormwater ponds can contain comparable biodiversity to unmanaged wetlands in urban areas. Hydrobiologia 745, 137–149 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10750-014-2100-5

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