Water is city planners’ nemesis. Because the constructed atmosphere is so impervious to liquid, because of all that asphalt, concrete, and brick, water accumulates as a substitute of seeping into the bottom. That’s the way you get the extreme flooding that has plagued California for weeks, to this point killing 19 people and inflicting maybe $30 billion in damages.

Traditionally, engineers have handled stormwater as a nuisance, constructing out advanced infrastructure like drains and canals to funnel the deluge to rivers or oceans earlier than it has an opportunity to puddle. But in California and elsewhere, local weather change is forcing a shift in that technique. As the world warms, extra water evaporates from land into the environment, which itself can maintain extra water because it will get hotter. Storms within the Golden State will come much less steadily, but dump extra water sooner once they arrive. Stormwater drainage techniques simply can’t get the water away quick sufficient.

To put together for this soggy future, engineers are turning to a different plan for flood management, forcing water to seep underground into pure aquifers. Such a plan will concurrently mitigate flooding and assist the American West retailer extra water regardless of a local weather gone haywire. “We need to think a little bit more creatively about: How do we most effectively utilize basically these huge underground sponges that we can use to supply potable water?” says Katherine Kao Cushing, who research sustainable water administration at San José State University.

California’s water system is constructed for a squirrelly Mediterranean local weather. Rains within the autumn and winter refill a system of reservoirs, which feed water throughout the state all through the bone-dry summer season. But that system strains throughout a drought, just like the one which’s been ravaging the state: The previous three years have been the driest three-year period since 1896. (Drought can actually exacerbate flooding, since parched floor doesn’t take up water as properly.) Before this collection of storms hit, a few of California’s reservoirs had nearly dried up. Now statewide reservoir storage is nearing the historical average. That’s how epic this rainfall has been.

Snowpack can be necessary. It grows at excessive altitudes by the winter, then melts and feeds reservoirs as temperatures rise. But local weather fashions predict {that a} important fraction of the state’s snowpack will likely be passed by 2100, says Andrew Fisher, who runs the University of California, Santa Cruz’s Recharge Initiative, which research groundwater sources. “Some of the models say all of it,” Fisher provides. “Let that sink in for a second. That’s more water than behind all the dams in the state. It’s very sobering because there is no way we’re going to double the number of dams.”

To hydrate its folks and agriculture, California is stepping up water conservation efforts, like getting extra low-flow bogs into properties and paying people to rip out their lawns, that are horrible for all kinds of reasons beyond their thirstiness. It’s recycling wastewater from properties and companies into ultra-pure water you can actually drink. But most of all, it’s making an attempt to carry onto its sporadic rainwater, as a substitute of draining it away, constructing out infrastructure to create “sponge cities.” These are popping up everywhere in the world; the idea has been widely deployed in China, and metropolis planners in locations like Berlin in Germany and Auckland in New Zealand are utilizing it to come back to grips with heavier rainfall.