Stetson University

Deland Fl 

The Stetson University Aquatic Sports Center is located on the shoreline of Lake Beresford, part of the St. Johns River. The Stetson Biology Department designed a system to minimize impacts to the lake and river with several innovative stormwater capture and treatment features. A pond collects all of the runoff from the pervious parking areas and includes three Beemats floating treatment wetlands. One is circular and includes several native flowering species. The other two are fabricated in the shape of the Stetson logo and are planted with grasses.

Another feature of the site is a rain garden that captures all of the rooftop runoff from the Center’s buildings and is planted with native aquatic and wet prairie vegetation, including butterfly and bee attracting species.

The plants along the pond shoreline, growing on the floating wetlands, and within the rain garden are trimmed periodically to harvest the captured nutrients in the mature biomass and remove the nitrogen and phosphorus from this contained ecosystem, before it impacts the adjacent natural waterways. ​