Permeable Pavement and Flood Prevention

Many flood prone cities are spending huge sums of money on flood prevention infrastructure such as storm tunnels and storm tanks in addition to developing greenspace that allows for the water to filter into the ground directly. In addition to these being incredibly expensive there will still always be parts of cities where pavement is a necessity and the storm infrastructure is simply not expansive enough to prevent the increasingly intense flooding that has come with climate change. 

These kinds of situations are where permeable concrete comes into play. A startup called Aquipor has developed a new form of concrete that contains millions of sub-micron pores that allow water to filter through the concrete and into the ground. An additional benefit of this particular brand of concrete are the size of the pores. Smaller than other permanent concrete pores they are less likely to clog and prevent pollutants from entering the groundwater.

As for the role of government I think that this is the kind of thing that would have to be funded by local or state governments and is something that private industry simply could not do without a government contract. Additionally in my personal opinion for mass organized efforts like these that do not really yield any concrete revenue private companies it would be impossible for projects like these to be built.