Best Management Practices - Enhanced Erosion and Sediment Control Using Swale Blocks

摘要

The report has as its focus erosion and sediment control of an existing highway using an innovative control concept, namely swale blocks. Swales are an important management practice for source control of rainfall excess (runoff volume) from highways. Inherent in the design is the specification that the swale wetted areas will infiltrate the rainfall excess. The swale design investigated in this work is one which will infiltrate the runoff from the first 3 inches (7.6 cm) of every storm event. When this removal is not achieved during flow through, swale blocks are suggested to retain the remaining waters. Swale blocks or filter berms were designed and constructed to illustrate operational effectiveness. Design aids were developed for various berm heights and highway slopes as a function of berm spacing for an Interstate highway section. Berms were constructed in swales along a four-lane roadway to determine hydraulic and sediment control effectiveness for a particular design.