Hydrologic Design of Pervious Concrete

A properly designed pervious concrete pavement system can reduce the environmental impact often associated with development. Pervious concrete pavement systems can also be used to improve the environmental performance of existing sites without compromising the business value of a property by replacing existing conventional pavements. The capability to simultaneously maintain water quality, reduce flooding, increase base flow, and preserve valuable parking areas for the property owner, especially in retrofit applications, are capabilities not easily obtained with other water quality or flood mitigation alternatives. Pervious concrete also provides a unique leadership opportunity for stewardship in context-sensitive construction and Low-Impact Development (LID). This document describes the fundamental hydrologic behavior of pervious concrete pavement systems and demonstrates basic design methodologies appropriate for a variety of sites and circumstances. This document also briefly discusses limitations of these methodologies.