use permeable alternatives
Impervious surfaces like driveways and walkways prevent stormwater from soaking directly into the ground. These surfaces instead shed water and create runoff. While what is best for the environment is to remove impervious surfaces, it is often not realistic to do so. Instead, there exists an effective alternative. Permeable pavers, porous pavement, or a ribbon driveway treatment are all able to infiltrate stormwater in place, while still functioning as they were designed.
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An alternative practice to replacing impervious surfaces is to install a drain in an existing driveway to capture stormwater and redirect it to an infiltration trench or another practice. See more information on this practice in the Maintain Your Driveway page.
Replace impervious surfaces on your property with an infiltration system such as permeable pavers.
Permeable Pavers
Permeable (or pervious) pavers look just like traditional hardscaping features and can be set as a surface for a driveway, walkway, patio, or other hardscape element in a yard. Permeable pavers infiltrate stormwater by allowing water to enter the small spaces set between pavers.
In order to allow for water to fully drain through permeable block pavers, they contain a system of gravel layers or specific materials such as bedding aggregate, a base coarse aggregate, open-graded subbase reservoir, and an underdrain. There are various types of permeable pavers that homeowners can choose from, and numerous online resources for more information.
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Here is how you can get started:
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Assess where you could implement permeable pavers on your property. Common locations are driveways, walkways, and patios.
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Learn more about how to install pavers. There are excellent resources online as well as in our Deeper Dive resource section.