Flood Mitigation Performance of Permeable Pavements in an Urbanised Catchment in Melbourne, Australia (Elizabeth Street Catchment): Case Study

Abstract

Permeable pavement (PP) systems have been shown to provide onsite stormwater management as well as contaminant removal benefits. Therefore, significant research has taken place in recent years to analyse the performance of these structures in terms of the volume of stormwater harvested and the water quality improvements at small scales. However, there is limited understanding of their performance for reducing stormwater runoff volume to prevent natural disasters, such as catchment-scale flooding. With larger flooding events projected to occur more frequently as a result of urbanisation and climate change, PP systems have the potential to mitigate loss by reducing peak flows and runoff volumes. Therefore, this research investigates the performance of PP at the catchment scale under a range of design rainfall and land-use scenarios. Results indicate that the integration of permeable pavements in urban settings is effective in mitigating surface flooding in an urbanised catchment in Melbourne, Australia by reducing the peak flows by 7–16%. However, in practice, flood reduction ability can markedly decrease with time due to the clogging of pavements. Our results provide preliminary data to show that the integration of permeable pavements into the existing urban landscape can reduce the risk of flooding by providing areas for water to infiltrate if maintained properly. These results are envisioned to assist councils and stormwater managers with the option evaluation of the water-sensitive urban design systems and selecting the appropriate stormwater management measures.