Our new publication in Water Research (Maxwell Finnegan et al; 2026), explores soil moisture availability for plants in salt-affected green stormwater infrastructure (GSI). We adopted a quantitative metric—the integral water capacity—to evaluate basin health in regions influenced by winter road-salt runoff from deicing applications. Our findings indicate that biochar can help mitigate both osmotic and matric stresses in GSI exposed to road-deicing salts, highlighting its potential as an effective management strategy for saline roadside environments.
Read full paper: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.watres.2026.125598

This undergraduate research project was led by Maxwell Finnegan (BS-ES, CARAS Fellow) and Lucy Archibald (BS-Geology, NSF GEOREPS).
Max is now a PhD student (NSF Graduate Fellow GRFP) at UCLA, and Lucy is an ORISE Fellow at US EPA.