Challenges
★Water Permeability
Was it a happy accident or a stroke of genius? When Jui-Wen Chen started working on the invention of the new pavement, he began to shift from the traditional, popular use of non-permeable pavement to the idea of using permeable pavement.
He started his research by studying problems experts face when dealing with urban water management. At the time, he saw that even with higher embankment and an increased number of water pumping stations, the city still faces serious flooding problems. He wondered where the water came from and how.
Jui-Wen Chen discovered that the water came from the drainage system. A system that supposedly discharges internal water to external water was actually a contributing factor of the flooding problem. He carefully examined the cause of the drainage system’s failure. He found extreme weather and urbanization were the primary causes to be blamed:
1.Extreme weather caused an increasing occurrence of heavy rain.
2.Urbanization led to the city having less and less natural land to absorb the sudden rainfall, causing an increase of runoff.
When the amount of runoff exceeds the drainage system’s capacity to discharge internal water, water builds up very quickly and overflows the system and eventually floods the city.
After learning this information, Jui-Wen Chen realized the necessity of a drainage system that could work more efficiently. He wondered if all the roads could become part of the drainage system, for it could allow the water to infiltrate through the road directly into the soil and, at the same time, reduce the stress of having to discharge internal water into external water.
In the end, Jui-Wen Chen slowly formed the idea of making roads a part of the drainage system. Thus, he focused on inventing a new type of pavement that has high permeability.
By Kevin Chang