Archive for the ‘Impervious Surfaces’ Category
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Our Need and Obligation to Reduce Impervious Cover [ John Cornacchia ]
John Cornacchia at Globacorp Developments International writes: Aquifer Diagram Impervious cover, also known as impervious surface, refers to any surface that water cannot easily penetrate. Ranging from roads, parking lots, driveways, patios, walkways, curbing, building rooftops, public buildings, and commercial structures, impervious cover prevents moisture, rain, and snow from soaking into the earth’s surface, thereby generating harmful stormwater runoff. Stormwater runoff carries organic matter, fertilizers, pesticides, grease, oil, and other contaminants into our ponds and streams, and more importantly, our precious aquifers. In addition to changing the quality of the water running into our water bodies, impervious […]
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Impervious Surfaces… Paving Our Paradise [ John Cornacchia ]
John Cornacchia at Globacorp Developments International writes: The process of urbanization is a dramatic transformation of land from a natural, agricultural, or rural state, into a built environment of human habitat. In a rapidly urbanizing country such as the Republic of Panama, the combined impact of hundreds of independent development projects occurring over the course of a decade can have ecosystem-wide implications greater than the usual site-level impacts that are reasonably managed under local land use regulations. Characterizing, quantifying and modeling ecosystem-wide impacts of urbanization can prove extremely challenging to incorporate into land management policies. Nonetheless, […]