Come monsoon, a common sight in Indian cities is the flooding of roads and waterlogging. Puddles of water accumulate on streets and alleyways, driving up traffic and making it incredibly hard for pedestrians to walk anywhere.

A new composite material called Topmix Permeable concrete can help solve this problem, reports Richard Gray for Mail Online. It’s a surface covering that is designed to be highly absorbent, and can suck up water very quickly. In one of the tests, it gulped down over 3,000 litres of water in a minute.

Here’s a video demonstrating a test of the material in a car park:

The advantages of this concrete material are many. It can prevent surface water flooding, make walking or cycling safe post-rain by preventing puddles from forming, tackle flash flooding in urban areas, but also, reduce, in case of places like Delhi where reports of tar melting emerged this past summer, the heating of tarmac in hot weather.