The Employment of Rain Gardens in Urban Water Management to Improve Biodiversity and Ecosystem Resilience

The planet has managed the water cycle for centuries. However, the complex and advanced technologies developed by humans introduced several innovations that their survival depends on, which in turn destroyed the natural system, especially the water cycle. As a result, the smooth functioning of natural cycles could not be sustained. Certain water management applications have been proposed to resolve this problem. The aim of this chapter is to determine the benefits of rain gardens for ecosystem resilience, biodiversity, and water management/economy, the correlations between these factors based on a measurable method, and to design and develop a sustainable model proposal. In the study, previous studies were reviewed, and alternative criteria clusters were developed. Various statistical and graphical analyses were conducted on these criteria. The significant parameters in rain garden design were determined with the analytical hierarchical process (AHP) method, and these parameters were compared. A decision-making mechanism was developed with the AHP method. Based on the study’s findings, a sustainable rain garden design model was proposed.