Contributing to the sustainable use of stormwater: the role of pervious pavements

The city of Melbourne, Australia is experiencing a water crisis with potable water storage reservoirs at an all time low. With increasing urbanisation there is an ever increasing need to research and explore sustainable water management initiatives. There is potential to minimise the negative impacts of stormwater runoff and augment dwindling supplies of potable water through adoption of pervious paving technology. The traditional approach to stormwater management has focused on constructing drainage networks to carry stormwater away from developed areas as quickly as possible to avoid the risk of flooding. The main aim of this research project was to establish relationships between rainfall intensity, infiltration rate and pervious pavement runoff and to examine the improvement to stormwater quality after infiltrating through pervious pavements. This paper describes the laboratory experiment set-up to determine the infiltration patterns and stormwater quality improvement for simulated storms precipitating on pervious pavements. Next, the scaling-up of the experimental rig to a field-based trial is explained. Preliminary results from this work are presented to demonstrate the potential benefits of pervious pavements in the Australian landscape.