Permeable Pavement Design Framework for Urban Stormwater Management Considering Multiple Criteria and Uncertainty

Abstract Cities worldwide continue to face severe water management problems. Therefore, researchers have endeavored to study stormwater management alternatives. However, the uncertainties in the outcomes of such scenarios and the inherent vagueness in human judgment are seldom considered in stormwater-related decision-making. Accordingly, this study developed a fuzzy analytic hierarchy process (FAHP) framework for designing permeable pavements, mainly comprising hydrologic, hydraulic, water quality, and economic criteria. The inputs and outputs were fuzzy instead of crisp numbers, to account for uncertainties. To illustrate the framework, a campus in Shanghai, China, was chosen as a case study. First, five permeable pavement design scenarios (SC1–SC5) were developed. The differences between SC1–SC3 were in the vehicle lanes, whereas those among SC3–SC5 were in the other light-load roads. Subsequently, expert opinion and stormwater management model (SWMM) simulation results were used as inputs to the framework. The results suggest that permeable pavements can effectively reduce surface runoff and pollutants but may lead to an increase in the conduit peak flow, owing to a reverse flow. In addition, adopting permeable pavements on vehicle lanes is less cost-effective than adopting them on light-load roads. Scenario SC5, which applied permeable pavements to 26% of the study area, was found to offer significant hydrologic, hydraulic, and water quality advantages over the other scenarios.