Influence of rainfall intensity and pollution build-up levels on water quality and quantity response of permeable pavements

Carmen Hernández-Crespo; Miriam Fernández-Gonzalvo; Miguel Martín; Ignacio Andrés-Doménech

doi:10.1016/j.scitotenv.2019.05.271

Influence of rainfall intensity and pollution build-up levels on water quality and quantity response of permeable pavements

Sci Total Environ. 2019 Sep 20:684:303-313. doi: 10.1016/j.scitotenv.2019.05.271. Epub 2019 May 21.

Authors

Carmen Hernández-Crespo¹, Miriam Fernández-Gonzalvo², Miguel Martín², Ignacio Andrés-Doménech²

Affiliations

¹ Instituto de Ingeniería del Agua y Medio Ambiente, Universitat Politècnica de València, Camino de Vera s/n, 46022, Valencia, Spain. Electronic address: carhercr@upv.es.
² Instituto de Ingeniería del Agua y Medio Ambiente, Universitat Politècnica de València, Camino de Vera s/n, 46022, Valencia, Spain.

PMID: 31153077
DOI: 10.1016/j.scitotenv.2019.05.271

Abstract

Permeable pavements are part of stormwater management practices known as sustainable urban drainage systems (SUDS). This study describes the influence of several environmental variables, such as the rainfall regime or the pollution build-up level, on the hydraulic and water quality performance of permeable pavements. Four infiltrometers with different configurations of pavement layers were used to study the influence of two rainfall regimes (Atlantic and Mediterranean) and two rainfall intensities (0.5 and 2.2mm/min). The influence of the progressive pollution build-up level was studied by dry sprinkling of road deposited sediments collected with a mechanical street sweeper with a dose of 5g/m²/d. The results show that permeable pavements retained a significant rainwater volume and improved the infiltrated water quality in terms of suspended solids, organic matter and nutrients when compared to the corresponding surface runoff potentially generated from an impervious pavement. The volume of rainwater retained inside them varied between 16 and 66% depending on the variables studied. The water infiltrated from permeable pavements subjected to a Mediterranean rainfall regime contained, in general, higher concentrations of organic matter (22 to 89mg Chemical Oxygen Demand/l) and nutrients (0.6 to 2.1mg Total Nitrogen/l and 0.05 to 0.45mg Total Phosphorus/l) than those under Atlantic regime. However, the latter infiltrated higher loadings in terms of mass. Nitrogen was the substance that infiltrated the most, reaching a 25% of the total mass of nitrogen deposited on the pavements surface. The concentration and mass loading in infiltrated water increased as the pollution build-up level did. The leachability of nutrients and organic matter was greater for high rainfall intensities. The results suggest that it is essential to carry out an adequate cleaning in dry conditions, especially when high intensity rainfall events are foreseen, because of its greater capacity to mobilize pollutants.

Keywords: Deposition rate; Leachability; Metals; Permeable pavement; Road deposited sediments.