Technology Making Better Use of Storm Water

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Technology Making Better Use of Storm Water

Low Impact Development (LID) is a planning and design approach that aims to mimic naturalized water balances. It combines infiltration, evaporation and transpiration while limiting runoff.

Low Impact Development (LID) is a planning and design approach that aims to mimic naturalized water balances. It combines infiltration, evaporation and transpiration while limiting runoff. The goal of LID is to restore processes that are lost in a built-up urban environment. LID includes several types of low-level new and innovative stormwater technologies that together let water infiltrate the ground and evapotranspire into the air.

Green or living infrastructure features heavily in the LID approach. Green roofs are vegetated roof systems that combine plants, engineered growing media, drainage layers and traditional waterproof roof membranes. They can look like rooftop gardens. Bioretention and rain gardens are other vegetated systems, these on ground level, that allow stormwater to soak directly into the earth. These living systems restore evapotranspiration and clean stormwater by filtering it as it flows through the engineered soils.

Permeable pavements allow stormwater to infiltrate slowly into the ground. These pavements can be used for low traffic roadways and driveways, parking lots and pedestrian walkways. There are many different kinds of permeable pavements: Some of the most commercially successful systems include permeable interlocking pavers, grass pavers, pervious concrete and porous asphalt.

Increasingly, municipal and regional legislators are introducing LID and green infrastructure into new public policy. In 2009 Toronto implemented agreen roof bylawrequiring green roof construction on new and redevelopment projects. New York City'sgreen infrastructure programaims to reduce the frequency with which the city's sewer system releases combined stormwater and sewage into downstream waterways. And, in water-limited cities, such as Canberra, Australia,neighborhood-level LID systemsare harvesting and recycling stormwater.

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