A review is made of current methods for assessing future changes in urban rainfall extremes and their effects on urban drainage systems, due to anthropogenic-induced climate change. The review concludes that in spite of significant advances there are still many limitations in our understanding of how to describe precipitation patterns in a changing climate in order to design and operate urban drainage infrastructure. Climate change may well be the driver that ensures that changes in urban drainage paradigms are identified and suitable solutions implemented. Design and optimization of urban drainage infrastructure considering climate change impacts and co-optimizing these with other objectives will become ever more important to keep our cities habitable into the future.

Microbial-induced calcite precipitation (MICP) is a promising new technology in the area of Civil Engineering with potential to become a cost-effective, environmentally friendly and sustainable solution to many problems such as ground improvement, liquefaction remediation, enhancing properties of concrete and so forth. This paper reviews the research and developments over the past 25 years since the first reported application of MICP in 1995. Historical developments in the area, the biological processes involved, the behaviour of improved soils, developments in modelling the behaviour of treated soil and the challenges associated are discussed with a focus on the geotechnical aspects of the problem. The paper also presents an assessment of cost and environmental benefits tied with three application scenarios in pavement construction. It is understood for some applications that at this stage, MICP may not be a cost-effective or even environmentally friendly solution; however, following the latest developments, MICP has the potential to become one.