Permeable Pavers: How to Sustainably Manage Water in Your Designed Greenspaces (Third in a Series)

Permeable Pavers:  Encourage Groundwater Recharge

The need to create greater environmental awareness in dealing with water conservation is evident and by understanding and implementing some of these simple principles, it gives real meaning to all the decisions that we make about how a landscape is planned and that we are doing something positive which we have control. 

Permeable landscape pavers, grid style, first appeared in the landscape in Germany in 1961.  Now some fifty years later, yes I said fifty, permeable pavers are still being treated like a new idea. 

There are many styles of permeable pavers, from the typical grid pavement for occasional use (typically seen with a cultivar of grass growing through them), to the concrete cast pavers that create a ¼” minimum open joint, providing interstitial spaces for gravel and drainage (ref. above photo).  

Designing sites to respect natural drainage patterns, minimize impermeable surfaces and maximize stormwater infiltration can help protect site and regional hydrologic systems by reducing downstream impacts and recharging groundwater.  By implementing permeable pavers along with stormwater planters and rain gardens and vegetated swales, we can slow down sheet flow, allowing the stormwater to infiltrate and reduce downstream impacts. 

Since landscape pavers are constructed on a monolithic sub-base, pavers withstand our areas freeze and thaw conditions without any issues when installed correctly.  These permeable pavers have a veneer surface that will withstand standard ice melt applications and should have an average life span of 25 years under normal conditions.  Permeable pavers are also play a major role in sustainable site design and are LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) accredited, LEED NC 2.2 SS Credit 6:1:  Stormwater Design: Quality Control

Resources Stormwater Best Management Practice Design Guide, EPA / 600 / R-04/ 121A, September 2004