The city of Chicago is turning to plants and trees to help address issues with stormwater flooding, which has been a repeated problem this summer.

This week, Chicago's South and West sides were hit hard by flooding, and have been getting a little help from experts at the Morton Arboretum in west suburban Lisle.

"Thinking about trees as sponges, where they soak up rainwater and they help filter it through their roots," said Morton Arboretum plant clinic manager Spencer Campbell.

Campbell said bur oak trees among a number of plants and trees that can help with flooding mitigation.

"Trees have a role to play when it comes to helping mitigate stormwater management," he said. "These [bur oak] trees have developed, over millions of years, the characteristics to help absorb rainwater."

Experts at Morton Arboretum have made recommendations to neighborhood groups in the city looking for help.

"Making sure that throughout Chicagoland, trees are available to every neighborhood," Campbell said.

Some of those neighborhoods have found themselves underwater more than once this summer, with the city's 311 service request line receiving more than 5,600 calls for flooding just since Saturday.

"We've got partners across the region; from government agencies to municipalities to local community groups," Campbell said.

Flood sensors are being installed in some of the city's most flood-prone neighborhoods, like Chatham, where the Morton Arboretum has worked with community groups in the past.

Experts have said for years that climate change is bringing more extreme weather and more rain to the Chicago area, making dedicated work to green spaces more important.

"We know that trees have a role to play when it comes to climate change mitigation, and we're working hard every day to better understand those relationships, so that we can share that with the public and make a real difference when it comes to trees and plants throughout the Chicaogland region and throughout the world, really," Campell said.

A spokesperson for Chicago's Department of Streets and Sanitation said, since 2022, they've planted more than 23,000 trees meant to soak up stormwater on the city's South and Southwest sides – areas hardest hit by recent severe weather events.

"A hundred mature trees can absorb up to a quarter of a million gallons of rainwater in just a single year," Campbell said.

The folks at Morton Arboretum have mapped out Chicago's most flood susceptible areas, where trees are most urgently needed, through their Chicago Region Trees Initiative.