Numerical Comparison of the Hydrological Response of Different Permeable Pavements in Urban Area

Abstract

Floods are becoming more frequent, especially in urban environments where most of the surface is waterproofed. Permeable pavement (PP) can be applied as low impact development (LID) systems for runoff mitigation in urban areas. Their effectiveness can be assessed, case by case, by numerical simulations. In this study, the effectiveness of mitigating runoff of different permeable pavements has been evaluated. In particular, porous asphalt (PA), pervious concrete (PC), permeable interlocking concrete pavement (PICP) and grid pavement (GP) have been investigated using EPA Storm Water Management Model (SWMM) software. To this aim, a car parking area located in the University Campus of Palermo (Italy) has been taken as a case study, considering several scenarios, each having a different percentage and planimetric layout of a PP type combined with an impermeable pavement. All the scenarios were tested assuming four synthetic rainfall events, referring to return periods of 5, 10, 50 and 100 years, and a real high return period event that occurred in Palermo in 2020. The results showed that amongst the different PPs considered, only the PA, bounded at the bottom by an impermeable layer, was practically ineffective. The other three PPs, proved to be effective in a noticeable way and furthermore for each scenario studied, they proved to bear almost the same mitigated runoff. The results proved appreciable differences in runoff as a function of the location of the PP over the study area.