Albert Road Experiment, South Melbourne

Study site on Albert Road in South Melbourne

This design aims to retain large volumes of stormwater in the landscape to support newly planted street trees. The existing palms prevented us from converting the median strip into a connected swale, therefore each newly planted tree has it’s own bioswale to promote infiltration.

Key design elements:

  • a kerb cut with a lintel moves water from Albert Road to a sediment zone in front of the service road kerb
  • flows back up and enter a bioswale which promotes infiltration into surrounding soil
  • when the swale is full, runoff will overflow via the service road kerb
  • a 300 mm deep reservoir in the bioswale is created by a riser in a downstream pit

Layout of experiment

Experimental design

The experiment has three treatments:

  • Tree planted as per standard
  • Trees planted next to a bioswale not receiving runoff
  • Trees planted next to a bioswale receiving runoff from the road

We’ll be monitoring soil moisture, tree growth, stormwater volume capture and flow rates in the experiment for approximately three years once constructed.

Project status

Construction was completed in November 2022 and we are currently installing monitoring equipment. We should start gathering clean data in early 2023.

Project team

This project represents a collaboration between the City of Port Phillip, DELWP, Melbourne Water, Afflux Consulting and The University of Melbourne.