Experimental study on the Hydrological Performance of a Permeable Pavement

This laboratory based study investigates the performance of permeable pavements. One meter square of permeable pavement was constructed in the hydraulics laboratory at Heriot-Watt University, in accordance with British Standards (BS 7533-13:2009). This pavement construction comprised a series of layers: a base of 300 mm of subgrade (sand), covered by 350 mm of coarse aggregate, 50 mm of fine aggregate and 80 mm of block paving. This paper focuses on the short term hydrology of the pavement and the way in which runoff percolates through the structure during a range of different rainfall events. In this paper, initial results are presented and conclusions are drawn regarding the hydrological performance of the pavement.