How can you get involved?

If you’re a built environment professional, you can promote raingardens on development sites at an early stage, or push for their inclusion and reference at the planning stage. You can push for multidisciplinary project teams which include landscape professionals, and move away from concrete pipes towards Nature Based Solutions. Our Raingardens in Built Development leaflet gives a good overview of the possibilities.

If you work for a Local Authority you can make links with other organisations at a catchment scale and promote using the multifunctionality of raingardens to create better places, requiring their use on development sites across the catchment.

If you’re a teacher or youth worker you can plan a raingarden project in your school or local area, using our leaflets and resources. At a small scale you could disconnect a downpipe and install a planter, or you could look more widely at the school grounds.

If you’re involved in a community garden, attend sessions with a faith group, work an office, have a back court, or any other links to organisations with outdoor space, you can plan a raingarden project, and use our leaflets as a starting point for discussion.

You can all help by building raingardens!

Your community garden or allotment is an ideal space to slow down, and use rainwater, which can help reduce flooding and stop dirty water overflowing into our rivers. You may also hear raingardens being called sustainable drainage or SuDS.

Raingardens use plants, soils and the landscape to hold on to rainwater and then slowly release it. They also help reduce the amount of water which gets to the sewer. Some water is taken up by the plants, some finds its way back down into the ground, and some water will evaporate. Raingardens also help clean the water, which may have picked up contaminants from roofs and hard surfaces. Raingardens in community gardens or allotments can also act as rainwater harvesting, allowing you to use the water for growing.

It might not always by possible to do everything, but even small changes help. This website gives you some ideas, as well as sources of further information in our Useful links section.