In order to obtain the hygric properties of typical porous paving materials for calculating heat and moisture transfer and evaluating its effect of evaporation cooling scientifically, three widely used porous paving materials, including sintered ceramic porous brick (TC), recycled aggregate concrete porous brick (ZS) and ordinary porous brick (PT) were selected, Firstly, referring to relevant standards at home and abroad, the apparent density ρ, open porosity φ and vacuum saturation moisture content w_vac of the porous bricks were tested by vacuum saturation test; the capillary water content w_cap and the water absorption coefficient A of the porous bricks were tested; the permeability coefficient k_T was tested by Darcy flow experiment. The hygric properties of porous bricks were initially established based on the error analysis of the test results. Through comparing with the test data, for water retention performance, ZS is the best, PT follows, TC is the worst; while, for water absorption performance, TC is optimal, PT follows, ZS is the minimum, showing that water retention and water absorption performance have not positively related; for permeability performance, TC is the optimal, PT follows, ZS is the weakest, on the premise of meeting the permeability, PT brick is the most conducive to the evaporation after water absorption.