Get the latest tech news
US Cities Could Be Capturing Billions of Gallons of Rain a Day
With better infrastructure and “spongy” green spaces, urban areas have made progress but should be soaking up way more free stormwater.
Not only is that a waste of free water, it’s an increasingly precarious strategy, as climate change worsens droughts but also supercharges storms, dumping ever more rainfall on scabby, impervious cities. Urban areas in the United States generate an estimated 59.5 million acre-feet of stormwater runoff per year on average—equal to 53 billion gallons each day—according to a new report from the Pacific Institute, a nonprofit research group specializing in water. The group is doing the same with schools, replacing asphalt with green spaces that counteract the urban heat island effect, in which the built environment absorbs the sun’s energy to raise temperatures.
Or read this on Wired
