Porous Paving
The Water Cycle ''continuous movement of water on Earth''
Water soaking back into the ground is very important to recharge ground water creeks and streams, the process naturally filters the water providing cleaner healthier waterways.
The problem...
As we have been building urban areas we have created vast amounts of impervious surfaces in the form of buildings, roads and footpaths. Our outdated system of handling stormwater dates back to the Romans where we simply channelled the water down gutters, into drains carrying pollutants and creating stormwater surges. This in turn creates a rush of polluted water that hits our waterways and causes erosion and flooding.
The solution...
Simply put, porous paving is the solution. If all of our paving was fully porous, almost no stormwater would be washing pollutants into the waterways.
Porous paving can be used to capture vast amounts of rainwater, which is reusable as non-drinking water. This helps reduce our water consumption from local catchments, meaning less of a strain is put on our supply during droughts.
Even when the rainwater isn't captured, by returning water to the water table at the point where it lands vast improvements to our local environment can be made. When water is returned to the water table, the quality of ground for the surrounding vegetation and wetlands is signficantly improved. Areas with a replenished water table are passively irrigated which means they are less prone to drying out and cracking as water rehydrates the ground from below the surface level as well as above. This in turn makes it easier for rainwater to permeate through and back to the water table.
The best hard landscaping handles rainwater in the same manner as soft landscaping - or in the case of StoneSet, better. StoneSet is more porous than turf and as it doesn't compact over time is better than mulch too.
Case Studies
Campbelltown Housing , SA
Technical Advice
