SPONGE INFRASTRUCTURE AND ATMOSPHERIC RIVERS: “Planners are finding clever ways to capture stormwater, treating it as an asset instead of a liability,” wrote Matt Simon after the future fell on Los Angeles in February 2024
Note to Reader:
Matt Simon is a journalist who writes Wired Science’s ‘Absurd Creature of the Week’ column. He has also edited Wired’s ‘This Day in Tech blog’, which was compiled into the book Mad Science, and writes a second column called ‘Fantastically Wrong’ that explores the strangest mistakes in folklore and science.
Los Angeles Just Proved How Spongy a City Can Be
“Centuries of urban-planning dogma dictates using gutters, sewers, and other infrastructure to funnel rainwater out of a metropolis as quickly as possible to prevent flooding,” wrote Matt Simon after an atmospheric river, dumped 9 inches of rain on Los Angeles over three days — over half of what the city typically gets in a year.
“It’s the kind of extreme rainfall that’ll get ever more extreme as the planet warms,” he continued. “Given the increasingly catastrophic urban flooding seen around the world, though, that clearly isn’t working anymore, so now planners are finding clever ways to capture stormwater, treating it as an asset instead of a liability.”
To Learn More:
To read the complete article as published in WIRED in February 2024, download a PDF copy of Los Angeles Just Proved How Spongy a City Can Be.
