Bulldozed suburban lawns shed rainwater almost like concrete.

Evidence

In a 1963 study published in Public Works, a county conservation official and a U.S. Forest Service scientist demonstrated that water ran off grass lawns quite quickly. Indeed, lawns behaved more like slabs of concrete than sponges. Why? Unlike the ground in a forest or a field, the soil in a suburban yard was usually quite compact, with little ability to absorb rain, because it was made by bulldozers, not by natural processes. In other words, the way the typical tract-house builder prepared a site for construction exacerbated the drainage problem. If a house had a septic tank, the ability of the lawn to slow runoff could be reduced further: The ground was often saturated with waste water from toilets, showers, laundries, and sinks. — Adam Rome, The Bulldozer in the Countryside, 810

Categorization

• XREF: connects to: Suburban development silted a Virginia lake fifteen times faster than farming had. — Adam Rome, The Bulldozer in the Countryside:…, 817; Scalped suburban watersheds erode at roughly fifty times undisturbed rates — Adam Rome, The Bulldozer in the Countryside:…, 898

Broader Connections

• Scalped suburban watersheds erode at roughly fifty times undisturbed rates #expands (0.85) — Adam Rome, The Bulldozer in the Countryside, 898