Turf grass lawns as impervious surfaces AND bringing back “lamb mowers.”

Because turf grass lawns are on ground compacted by construction equipment and because grass roots are about 3 inches not 5 feet as meadow grass.  On turf grass lawns rainwater does not soak into the ground but runs off lawns.  

Turf lawns are an impervious surface adding to flooding downstream of housing subdivisions.

Not only roofs, driveways and sidewalks are impervious surfaces of suburban subdivisions, lawns are also impervious surfaces. The stormwater retention basins of suburban subdivisions handle ordinary rainfall. During the more and more common deluges stormwater retention basins cause attenuation of downstream flooding. 

Changing lawn height regulations to allow meadow grass & shrubs would allow groundwater recharge and less downstream flooding.  

I believe a frequently flooded community in Northern New Jersey tried suing an upstream subdivision but it went nowhere. Until the relationship between lawns and flooding is generally understood by juries,  lawsuits by communities downstream against communities upstream won't work.

The almost normal attenuated flooding of the East Branch Brandywine in Downingtown is caused by housing subdivisions upstream. 

The last time the West Branch Brandywine flooded was August 9, 1942. New housing subdivisions going up in the West Branch Brandywine watershed could bring back flooding of the West Branch Brandywine in Coatesville, PA

"If grass were a crop, it would be the largest in the United States. Turf grass covers an estimated 1.9 percent of the continental United States, according to a 2005 NASAanalysis of satellite images, including residential and commercial lawns, golf courses and similar landscapes. Together, these would represent the largest irrigated crop in the United States, three times bigger than corn.” - Washington Post 

Coatesville Dems Blog

Thursday, September 7, 2023

The business insurance company my daughter works for DOES NOT INSURE WEATHER RELATED INCIDENTS since at least 2006 when weather related property insurance was a problem. Now weather related insurance is a cataclysm

“Every summer, before heading to the beach, we’d have to ensure his grass was cut. We’d push a roaring lawn mower under the scorching Florida sun. The carpet of scratchy St. Augustine grass seemed to grow faster than we could mow it.

If only I had known about the amazing grazing solution pioneered millennia ago. “Lawn mowers” were once synonymous with hoofed livestock — goats, sheep, horses and other herbivores — that foraged grasses, seedlings and what are now called weeds. By constantly mowing and fertilizing, they created open pasture

FROM:

The Washington Post

The surprising benefits of switching to ‘lamb mowers’

Michael J. Coren

October 24, 2023 at 6:30 a.m. EDT