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Green infrastructure more effective in managing storm water

Building underground storage, sometimes referred to as the big-pipe solution for storm water management, is too costly and brings limited benefits.

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Larry Shaeffer

Building underground storage, sometimes referred to as the big-pipe solution for storm water management, is too costly and brings limited benefits.

The more effective and less costly alternative that comes with additional benefits is to implement best practices in city-wide storm water management that utilise green infrastructure. In this toolbox are green roofs, which also reduces noise and costs from air-conditioning, and green streets such as Portland’s Green Streets.

Storm water structures are combined with traffic calming techniques for smoother traffic, greater safety for pedestrians and aesthetically pleasing streets. These measures cost far less in total than the big-pipe solution of underground storage.

In the United States, federal clean water laws mandate that cities contain and clean their storm water run-off. The cost estimate for Philadelphia, which is about one-third smaller than Singapore, to address this problem via underground storage was US$9 billion (S$11.4 billion) to US$14 billion.

Many officials in US cities who saw these price tags have now switched to implementing green infrastructure, in part because it has other benefits beyond simple water storage.

This was posted on todayonline.com/voices in response to “Is Singapore building too fast?” (Sept 11).

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