Enhancing Urban Flood Resilience Through Pervious Concrete: Innovative Solutions for Sustainable Urban Landscaping

Global urbanization brings challenges like increased impervious surfaces and flooding vulnerability. Pervious concrete, a sustainable material, offers a solution by mitigating flooding and enhancing urban landscapes. This study explores a suitable concrete mix design for pervious concrete in enhancing the urban flood resilience by managing stormwater. This involves an in-depth investigation of the properties and behavior of pervious concrete made with varying proportions of fine aggregate-to-coarse aggregate percentages accompanied by different fly ash to cement ratio and waste fibers, and varying W/C ratios, focusing on its permeability, compressive and splitting tensile strength, and water retention capabilities. It aimed to enhance the strength of the pervious concrete while minimizing the additional fine percentage through the incorporation of fibers. Laboratory experiments and field trials are conducted to assess the material's performance under various rainfall intensities. The study identifies the optimal mix designs of pervious concrete of 30 Mpa to be 0% fines, 0.3% fly ash, and 0.27% water-to-cement ratio effectively promotes infiltration and percolation of stormwater with 20% of voids, reducing surface runoff and mitigating the risk of flooding. When reducing the fine content; the in-filtration rate was increased. The material exhibits sufficient 31.6 MPa compressive strength and 2.9 MPa splitting tensile strength for typical urban applications while allowing water to pass through 0.95 cm/s, facilitating groundwater recharge and enhancing overall water management. Infiltration rate is increased by 57% than conventional concrete. Increasing the fly ash to cement ratio significantly enhances the permeability of concrete by 75% compared to conventional mixtures. In contrast, adding waste fibers does not affect permeability but does improve strength. This study leads to potential savings in the design and installation of traditional drainage infrastructure with adoption of pervious concrete as an integral part of urban design in pavement construction.