Welcome to the Pathway to Water Quality

Pervious Concrete & Water Quality

Thanks to the Indiana Ready Mixed Concrete Association (IRMCA), a pervious concrete walk installed at the Pathway to Water Quality Exhibit in 2005 demonstrates its environmental qualities. The exhibit, located on the northeast side of the Indiana State Fairgrounds, features the special concrete.

Essentially, pervious concrete is structural concrete pavement that "drinks" water. Water can pass through it rather than run off into storm drains carrying oil and other pollutants with it. Pervious concrete has a porous structure allowing rainwater to pass directly through the pavement, into a storage layer of stone underneath, then into the soil naturally. This specific type of concrete filters and cleans storm water before it reaches water stored beneath the earth.

• Learn More About the Pervious Concrete at the PWQ
  
  
• Learn More About the Indiana Ready Mixed Concrete Association
  • Pervious Concrete - the Concrete that Drinks!
    
    
• Alabama Cooperative Extension Service Links on Pervious Concrete

Did you know concrete can contribute to improving water quality? Visitors to the Pathway to Water Quality exhibit at the Indiana State Fairgrounds get the opportunity to learn just how environmentally important this type of concrete really is.

Conventional concrete is shown on the left (lighter colored) and the pervious concrete is on the right.. Water from the fountain filters through the pervious concrete, however, you will see it run down the conventional concrete into the storm drain carrying pollutants with it.

Walk the Path that Water Walks . . .
Where does all the water go after it rains? How does what people do on their land at home, on the farm and in the cities affect water and soil quality? Pathway to Water Quality can show you. PWQ is a model watershed that shows you how land "sheds" excess water and what than means to you.