This year has already seen one of Australia's worst floods on record, in which 23 people died and thousands were left homeless. The damage bill of the disaster is expected to top $1.5bn (about £1.2bn).
In addition to the impacts of climate change, increasing urban development is contributing to the rise in flood risk. The building of impermeable road and sidewalk surfaces in cities often causes surface water to collect, with nowhere to drain. Overall, the cost of natural disasters is predicted to cost $33bn AUD (18.6bn) by 2050.
University of South Australia (UniSA) engineers have proposed a solution, published in an article in the Sustainability journal: permeable pavements.
Permeable pavements are used on many driveways, parking lots and low-traffic roads. Their porous surface allows water and rainfall to run off, directed towards internal reservoirs, where it is collected before being filtrated into the underlying soil.
These pavements usu...