How common goldfish could save cities from flooding

Abstract

Recently, there has been wide national (various British newspapers) and even international (German radio) public interest in Scottish experiments that introduce Carassius auratus (common goldfish) into sustainable urban drainage systems (SUDS), which have been applied to combat flooding. Moreover, dog faeces were added to these systems to simulate contaminated urban runoff. The purpose of this novel and timely research is to increase public acceptance of zero discharge infiltration ponds, and to control algal growth with C. auratus. Findings show that C. auratus improve most water quality variables after their introduction to planted and unplanted infiltration ponds despite deterioration of virtually all common inflow water quality variables based on an annual comparison. Public interest is high because the study captures the imagination of the urban population facing recurrent flooding problems in autumn in low‐lying areas, and the nuisance of dog excrements despite of new regulations to scoop up droppings.

Keywords:

• Algae
• Dog
• Faeces
• Goldfish
• Pond
• Sustainable Urban Drainage Systems

Acknowledgement

The authors wish to thank H. Nanbakhsh, P. Anderson and K. V. Heal for their technical support and advice. The research was partly sponsored by The Royal Academy of Engineering (Global Research Award; awarded to M. Scholz in April 2004), Glasgow City Council and The University of Edinburgh Development Trust.