This Is AuburnElectronic Theses and Dissertations

Assessment of Storm Water Quality through Porous Pavement Systems

Date

2015-07-31

Author

Dudala, Swarup Kumar

Type of Degree

Master's Thesis

Department

Civil Engineering

Abstract

Stakeholders, (designers, industrial developers, governmental agencies, and private landowners) are increasingly concerned about enhancing storm water quality, reducing run off, and improving the recharge of ground water. They are increasingly turning to sustainable pavement systems to address these issues. The most widely used pervious pavements consist of porous asphalt or concrete over open graded aggregate base and are considered storm water Best Management Practice (BMP). However, without proper information pervious pavements are inapplicable. In choosing pervious pavement options valid measures such as infiltration rate, storm water quality, thermal gain, and water storage capacity are routinely considered, but environmental performance is not. This study discusses the effects of storm water quality on porous pavements and impacts on groundwater quality of infiltrating contaminated storm water. In order to assess these impacts a bespoke field site was constructed on the Auburn university campus which provides parallel assessment of pervious and impervious, regular and experimental paving systems. These pavements tested included conventional concrete and asphalt, porous concrete and porous asphalt, photocatalytic pervious and impervious concrete. In this study, effluents from all the pavements were tested for contaminants such as Oil and grease, PAH, Heavy metals (Pb, Cu, Zn, Cd, Cr and Fe), Sediments, Nutrients, Chloride, and TDS. The results of this experiment suggest pervious pavements can effectively remove selected contaminants from storm water runoff and leachate