Surface water flooding

Sidewalks made from travertine - a form of limestone used for tiles and kitchen bench tops - can cut flooding by up to 50 percent, according to a study by researchers at Xi’an Jiaotong-Liverpool University in Suzhou, southeast China. As well as helping water escape into the ground, travertine removes a number of pollutants that occur when rainwater mixes with dirt, rendering it suitable for agriculture, they said. “We have more evidence to show that flooding is happening more often all over the world due to climate change,” said Xiaonan Tang, a co-author of the study and associate professor at the university’s department of civil engineering. “This new material helps reduce urban surface flow to reduce flooding,” he told the Thomson Reuters Foundation on Tuesday. Over the past four decades, natural disasters have cost the Asia-Pacific region about $1.3 trillion, according to U.N. estimates, with China, Japan, the Philippines and Vietnam worst-hit by … [Read more...] about Kitchen building material could cut urban flooding by half: scientists

Loss of coral reefs around the world would double the damage from coastal flooding, and triple the destruction caused by storm surges, researchers said Tuesday. Coupled with projected sea level rise driven by global warming, reef decline could see flooding increase four-fold by century's end, they reported in the journal Nature Communications. Without coral to help absorb the shock, a once-in-a-century cyclone would wreak twice the havoc, with the damage measured in the tens of billions of dollars, the team calculated. "Coral reefs serve as natural, submerged breakwaters that reduce flooding by breaking waves and reducing wave energy," said Michael Beck, lead scientist at The Nature Conservancy research and environmental group, and a professor at the University of California in Santa Cruz. "Unfortunately, we are already losing the height and complexity of shallow reefs around the world, so we are likely already seeing increases in flood damages along many tropical coasts," he told AFP. … [Read more...] about Flood damage would double without coral reefs: study