Drening for stormwater management at Orio al Serio Airport in Bergamo

The parking lot ofOrio al Serio Airportin Bergamo has recently been affected by expansion works which allowed to add1500 car parksto the other 1500 already existing ones. Paving a large ground surface is an intervention that affects rainwaters natural infiltration into the subsoil, with the consequent risk of floodings and damages to public and private property, including infrastructures. An efficient stormwater management system was thus required. Drening, Geoplast tunnel element for rainwater accumulation and attenuation, was chosen to create3 rainwater dispersion basinsunder the Airports new Fly Park,thussignificantly reducing the water volume in the drainage system and facilitating the ground infiltration.1870is the total amount ofDreningpieces used, that covered a surface of12,000 m. This choice has been made, asDreningoffers greater advantages compared to traditional systems while guaranteeing the same hydraulic performance and greatly expediting the installation times. In this case, the system, developing on the surface, ensured a wider dispersing surface and speeded up the disposal process. At the end of the work, Geoplast Solution ensured not only an effective stormwater management but also the restoration of the natural water balance. By facilitating water infiltration into the subsoil,Drening is also useful to refill the aquifers, one of the main water supply sources men usually exploit.

Global water management issues

Water is lifeand distinguishes our planet compared to all the others we know about. While the global supply of available freshwater is more than adequate to meet all current and foreseeable water demands, its spatial and temporal distributions are not. There are many regions where freshwater resources are inadequate to meet domestic, economic development and environmental needs.In such regions, the lack of adequate clean water to meet human drinking water and sanitation needs is indeed a constraint on human health and productivity and hence on economic development as well as on the maintenance of a clean environment and healthy ecosystems. All of us are involved to find a sustainable way to solve these issues. However, we facemultiple challengesin doing that, especially given a changing and uncertain future climate, and a rapidly growing population that is driving increased social and economic development, globalization, and urbanization. Major rivers including theColorado Riverin the western United States and theYellow Riverin China no longer reach the sea in most years. TheCalifornia droughtis exacerbating the large and growing gap between the states water use and the available water supply, while theWestern Cape droughtis causing a significant water crisis never seen before in South Africa:Level 4 water restrictions are being imposed, limiting the consumption of water to50 litres per person per day.The worlds water is increasingly becoming degraded in quality, threatening the health of people and ecosystems and increasing the cost of treatment. Some780 million people around the globe still lack access to clean water and thousands perish daily for the lack of it. All these issues are connected to a wasteful use of water, characterized bypoor management systemsand failure to apply existing water technologies. Today perhapshalf of economically available freshwateris used to satisfy human demandstwice what it was only 35 years ago [Young et al.,1994]. We are not sure how much water must remain in our natural ecosystems to maintain them; many have already been destroyed by overwithdrawals of water. Fortunately studies of the role of water in ecosystems are improving our ability to value it and to understand large scale, long-term ecosystem processes and the flows of water they require. Nowadays, theres an International Institution that deals with all these problems: The International Water Management Intitute. This is a non-profit research organisation with headquarters in Colombo, Sri Lanka, and offices across Africa and Asia. Its research focuses on: water availability and access, including adaptation to climate change; how water is used and how it can be used more productively; water quality and its relationship to health and the environment; and how societies govern their water resources. However, the change must start from all of us. What can we do toimprove water management concretely? Increase soil organic matter; Improve soil structure; Reduce soil erosion; Increase water filtration; Increase efficiency of water use; Replenish soil nutrients. Geoplast offers many solutions for water accumulation. Drening,DrainpanelandNew Elevetor Tank for example, are our flagship products with regard to the field mentioned above. They are all a valid alternative the systems used until today. They can be used for rainwater management of residential and commercial buildings, roads, parking lots, but also for household use, irrigation of public parks and rainwater accumulation for reuse or subdispersion. Rainwater accumulation systems are very important for many reasons: They Help the reduction of the waste ofdrinking waterfor uses like irrigation, washing machines, toilet flushing, etc They allow the creation ofundergound tanksto collect rain, storage it and used in a second time, for many different purposes; They can be applied to buildagriculture water saving systems, in order to collect water and use it to irrigate fields or public parks during period of drought. Collection and reuse of rainwaterin an excellent solution to save this important resource, also in the building sector, creating for example a domestic water saving system. All our products can be used in different situations, singularly or combined together. Our planet no longer functions in the way it once did. Earth is currently confronted with a relatively new situation, the ability of humans to transform the atmosphere, degrade the biosphere, and alter the lithosphere and hydrosphere. The challenge for all of us is to start a different and opposite process to help our planet and for hence to usesustainable methods to avoid environmental degradations and indeed save our own health.