All major cities, especially coastal cities which also happen to be the case of most of Asian Capitals, have been struggling to cope up with this increase of storm drainage. Enhancing storm drainage networks, developing underground tunnels with pumping stations have been some of them. An alternative approach that has gained widespread adoption is the management of runoff at its source, by storing and infiltrating water to the ground.
This activity has started in Japan in mid 1980's with infiltration galleries in housing complexes where we make trenches filled with gravel to store water and infiltrate to ground. Also many public infrastructure such as school playgrounds were used as temporary storage. My research during the PhD studies in the mid 80s was in the design and implementation of these systems and in this presentation I will briefly explain how the adoption has evolved over the years.
