Allen Pratt, a Master of Landscape Architecture Candidate at the University of Georgia, was the winner of the Fall 2013 Scholarship Raffle. Mr. Pratt entered his presentation, "Permeable Pavement," via PaveShare's contribute page. His work focuses on an overview of Permeable Interlocking Concrete Pavements, which ranges from permeable paver benefits, paver types, and construction documentation.

The non-monolithic surface of precast concrete pavers allows them to minimize the impact on the local environment. Where a paved surface is necessary, the segmental pavers can be integrated with the functions of the earth and environmental conditions thereby reducing the overall impact that a monolithic surface might impose.
Portion of Harfmann/Day publication - Other advantages include: Design Variety, Safety, Zip and Unzip, and Cost. 

This short video discusses current stormwater management practices and shows how PICP can be used as part of an effective sustainable, low impact development response to today's precipitation and stormwater management problem.

When compared to runoff from an adjoining asphalt lot, permeable pavement exfiltrate contains significantly lower concentrations of phosphorous and zinc, as well as reductions in total nitrogen, and thus provides for better water quality. To further test various permeable pavement designs, a parking lot consisting of four different types of permeable pavements and standard asphalt was constructed in Kinston, NC. The following PDF evaluates this case study and the water quality improvement as a result of PICP.

When it comes to permeable paver design, several factors go into making a functional system.  One must size the system appropriately taking rainfall, infiltration rates, available area, void space, layer depth, and time all into consideration.  This lesson will introduce you to all those critical factors in these three lesson components:

Successful permeable interlocking concrete pavements (PICP) rely on an adequately designed sub-surface retention system, properly sized to handle the amount of water both falling on and running into the PICP system.  Proper depth and open-graded material selection (void space) are essential. The formula listed below is used to determine base/subbase depth. 

Location is Everything.
While designing paving systems, you must consider location.  It rains DIFFERENTLY in California than Alabama. Each system can have a number of different soils, each draining and retaining water DIFFERENTLY.  Lets take a deeper look into how rain events, annual precipitation and soil type effect permeable paving systems.

This learning animation walks you through many of the considerations for designing a ICP system.  Topics range from rainfall events, geographic range, soils, and substrates.  After completing the learning section, an interactive site allows your to choose different combinations of parking surface areas and base depth to hold a particular rain event. 

Nashville, Tennessee is encouraging permeable pavement though municipal water laws. 

Learn more about the environmental benefits of permeable interlocking concrete pavements.