Water quality performance of a permeable pavement and stormwater harvesting treatment train stormwater control measure

Stormwater runoff from urban development causes undesired impacts to surface waters, including discharge of pollutants, erosion, and loss of habitat. A treatment train consisting of permeable interlocking concrete pavement and underground stormwater harvesting was monitored to quantify water quality improvements. The permeable pavement provided primary treatment and the cistern contributed to final polishing of total suspended solids (TSS) and turbidity concentrations (>96%) and loads (99.5% for TSS). Because of this, >40% reduction of sediment-bound nutrient forms and total nitrogen was observed. Nitrate reduction (>70%) appeared to be related to an anaerobic zone in water stored in the scarified soil beneath the permeable pavement, allowing denitrification to occur. Sequestration of copper, lead, and zinc occurred during the first 5 months of monitoring, with leaching observed during the second half of the monitoring period. This was potentially caused by a decrease in pH within the cistern or residual chloride from deicing salt causing de-sorption of metals from accumulated sediment. Pollutant loading followed the same trends as pollutant concentrations, with load reduction improved vis-a-vis concentrations because of the 27% runoff reduction provided by the treatment train. This study has shown that permeable pavement can serve as an effective pretreatment for stormwater harvesting schemes.