Turning Cities Into Sponges to Save Lives and Property
Officials around the world are implementing techniques to absorb or divert water and protect urban areas from the effects of climate change.
Engineers, architects, urban planners and officials around the world are seeking ways to retrofit or reconstruct cities to better deal with water — basically, to act more like sponges. While water management has always been an essential service in cities, climate change, combined with urban expansion into wetlands and floodplains, is making flooding and drought worse at the same time.
So, around the world officials are moving away from the traditional, hard infrastructure of flood barriers, concrete walls, culverts and sewer systems, and toward solutions that mimic nature.