Australia is the driest inhabited continent in the world. Let that sink in for a moment, and consider how scarce and valuable water is as a resource that we take for granted. Good landscape design always seeks to be “sustainable”. But what does that actually mean – from both a design and end user perspective? … Continued
Geotextile fabrics are an essential class of materials in civil construction. (It’s vast! For a good technical introduction on it, check out Geotextiles in Construction). Their primary purposes applicable to this blog post are to provide: separation, drainage, filtration and reinforcement. We’ll look at each of these and how they apply to permeable paving. What … Continued
Permeable paving is pretty simple – water drains freely and quickly through it and into the ground underneath. But why do councils (and engineers, and architects, and town planners, and municipal water authorities….) love permeable paving so much? We’ll have a look at this, and the environmental benefits in this blog post. But first, where … Continued
A good permeable pavement should drain significant quantities of water immediately through both the paving layer and paving base. This means that in all but the heaviest of rain events, very little water remains on the surface of the paving. But what implications does this have for drainage? Do you still need surface drains … Continued
Increasingly we are seeing more and more creative ways that permeable paving can be used to manage stormwater and associated problems like erosion and nutrient leeching. For example, this article here (opens in new tab) shows a council in Canada trialling a permeable parking lot. It’s a great illustration of how councils are realising the … Continued