Rainwater harvest with desert-sand brick: an adaptive strategy in water resources management to climate change

Abstract

Abstract Urbanization causes many changes to the hydrological cycle, including radiation flux, precipitation amount, water evaporation and evapotranspiration, and soil infiltration. This study presents an adaptive strategy that aims to achieve efficient use of rainwater and realize sustainable development in the urban area by using desert sand. The permeable brick is made of desert sand, of which compressive strength is intensive, water permeability is high, and fabrication cost is low. Two water-permeable holes are included in the brick which is convenient for rainwater infiltration and maintenance of the permeable pavement. Experimental results show that the mean and maximum compressive strengths of the desert-sand bricks are 69.6 and 102.8 Mpa, which are 2.3 and 3.4 times of the strength required by the standard JC/T 945–2005, respectively. The fabrication cost of the water-permeable brick designed by the authors is only 12 US dollars/m2, which is much lower than that of the sand-based permeable bricks that already exist in the market. Hence, the kind of permeable brick can render substantial economic benefits and ecological improvements.