Pervious pavement research in Spain: Hydrocarbon degrading microorganisms

Pervious pavements have made an important contribution to stormwater quality improvements in sustainable urban drainage systems, particularly as part of a treatment train approach. In Spain however this approach has hardly been addressed. This paper outlines the emerging research in a collaboration between UK and Spanish Universities aimed at establishing a research infrastructure to allow the study of pervious pavements to be carried out taking into account local conditions in the northwest of Spain. Parallel with the development of locally-appropriate porous pavement structures a biological study dealing with the hydrocarbon degrading efficiency is taking place. Experiments are reported utilising different locally available surfaces and sub-base materials in which microorganisms are introduced from a variety of contaminated sites to act as an inoculum. In addition to effluent analysis aimed at measuring the degree of hydrocarbon retention/degradation, experiments will be reported on the physical characteristic of the different materials used. This research addresses the influence, not only of the different surface and sub-base materials but also of the different types of geosynthetics used. It is intended that this research will establish criteria for the further development of a design for hydrocarbon-degrading pervious pavement structures in Spain