Legal instrument to mitigate the excess runoff on individual plots: a technical and economic approach

Abstract

Water is one the most important natural resource. It has been known how necessary is to take care of this essential resource. One way to keep water on its natural flow could be aiming the water flow to infiltrate in the soil. Few researches have treated about the costs of devices which make the water flows going directly to the soil. We have found that the costs are less than a half percent of the costs of entire buildings. We believe that there is a gap in relation to inquiries about all the costs and benefits involved in the actions (individual and collective) on the mitigation of impervious surfaces in urban areas. Moreover, we believe that traditional structures are not prepared to solve environmental issues because they do not regard that the economy is a subsystem of nature, which would limit its development. They do just the opposite.