Urban districts are increasingly exposed to overlapping heat stress and stormwater loads driven by warming trends, more intense rainfall, and continued growth of impervious surfaces. Pavements occupy a large share of the public right-of-way, so their material and structural design offers a scalable pathway for urban climate adaptation. Yet the literature on porous asphalt remains fragmented, with hydrological performance often assessed using infiltration or permeability metrics in isolation, while thermal studies frequently report surface cooling without consistently tracking the governing water budget or its persistence. To reconcile these disconnected strands, this review synthesizes a conceptual hydro-thermal balance framework in which runoff mitigation and heat moderation are treated as a coupled problem controlled by storage, drainage pathways, and evaporative demand. Within this framing, cooling is primarily water-limited: permeability enables wetting and redistribution, but the magnitude and duration of temperature reduction depend on how much water is retained near the surface and how long it remains available for evaporation, rather than on permeability alone. The review integrates the current understanding of mixture structure and pore connectivity, permeability–storage behavior, moisture availability and evaporation, and the operational factors that govern performance persistence. Laboratory and field evaluation approaches are summarized alongside modeling methods used to interpret coupled hydro-thermal responses under different climates. Practical constraints—including clogging, maintenance requirements, and durability risks under repeated moisture–temperature cycling—are discussed as mechanisms that can progressively suppress both infiltration and water availability, undermining long-term function without performance-based specifications and life-cycle planning. Finally, design and policy implications are outlined for integrating porous asphalt into coordinated heat-and-stormwater strategies, and research priorities are identified to advance standardization, long-term monitoring, and coupled hydro-thermal–mechanical assessment.

Water quality deterioration in Lebanon is a pressing national issue and there is a high need for continuous water quality assessment and monitoring of water bodies in the country. This study aims at assessing water quality of Ras El-Ain Ponds, a major natural water resource for domestic use in Tyre district, South Lebanon by using the widely applied Canadian Council of Ministers of the Environment Water Quality Index (CCME WQI). Sampling was conducted during February-March, 2023 and physiochemical and microbiological water quality parameters were determined using standardized methods. Assessed parameters in our study are temperature, turbidity, electrical conductivity (EC), total dissolved solids (TDS), pH, ammonia, nitrite, nitrate, chloride, hardness, sulfate, orthophosphate, total organic carbon, fluoride and E. coli which is considered as a main indicator of fecal contamination of waterways. CCME WQI was calculated following the Canadian Water Quality Guidelines in view of the permissible levels set by the World Health Organization (WHO), Lebanese Standards Institution (LIBNOR) and CCME. With the exception of marginal levels of EC and TDS according to WHO and CCME, assessed water quality parameters were within the permissible ranges of standards for domestic water use. As for the CCME WQI, the obtained values fell between 90.73 and 94.42 % which indicates a “Good Quality” level confirming the suitability of water for domestic use. This research presents the first attempt to evaluate the CCME WQI of Ras El-Ain Ponds for quality monitoring and proper decision making. More comprehensive validation of CCME WQI that covers temporal and climatic variabilities is recommended for the assessment process.