Urbanization brings an increasing concentration of pavements, buildings, and other impervious surfaces. They generate additional runoff and pollutants during rainstorms, causing stream-bank erosion as well as degenerating lakes and polluting sources of drinking water. Increased runoff also deprives groundwater from being recharged, decreasing the amount of available drinking water in many communities. Many jurisdictions are now requiring best management practices (BMP’s) to control non-point source water pollution, and they are divided into non-structural and structural BMP’s. Structural BMP’s capture runoff and rely on gravitational settling and/or the infiltration through a porous medium for pollutant reduction and peak discharge control. They include detention dry ponds, wet retention ponds, infiltration trenches, sand filtration systems, and permeable pavements. This paper will discuss the use of permeable interlocking concrete pavements as a structural BMP under infiltration and partial treatment of stormwater pollution. It will cover the selection of the pavement cross-section based upon the municipal stormwater management objective, and the criteria for design, construction and maintenance.
