4/14/2010
Spring weather brings not only budding flowers and green grasses; it often unleashes downpours that can lead to the significant erosion of roadside embankments, agricultural soils, and other important land areas. A new research and training center established through the Department of Agricultural and Biological Engineering at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign is expanding its services to offer research and training related to understanding and controlling storm water pollution and erosion.
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Spring weather brings not only budding flowers and green grasses; it often unleashes downpours that can lead to the significant erosion of roadside embankments, agricultural soils, and other important land areas. A new research and training center established through the Department of Agricultural and Biological Engineering at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign is expanding its services to offer research and training related to understanding and controlling storm water pollution and erosion.
The Storm Water Pollution and Erosion Control Research and Training Center, located on the university’s South Farms, features a 300-feet-long and 13-feet-high dirt berm with three drainage ditches that can be discharged into a small pond. The research facility will be used to study the processes of erosion and test how different vegetations, commercial products, and other erosion control methods can reduce the degradation of soils and soil structures caused by storm waters and other weather-related factors. Check dams will be installed every few feet along the drainage channels to study how sediments washed from the berm and surrounding areas are transported through the ditches and into the pond.
Prasanta Kalita, a professor in the Department of Agricultural and Biological Engineering, provides leadership for the center in partnership with associate professor Richard Cooke, and Niels Svendsen and Heidi Howard of the Construction Engineering Research Laboratory (CERL) of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. U of I students assist with research activities of the center, enhancing their education and helping to develop solutions to real-world engineering and environmental challenges.
“Several erosion control products are currently being tested at the site,” Kalita said. “Over the winter months, we installed erosion control blankets to study the efficiencies of those products to control erosion caused by winter processes such as thawing snow and its associated runoff. More recently, we have been examining their effectiveness during heavy rainfall.”
The center was established through a $450,000 grant from the Illinois Department of Transportation (IDOT). Additional support in terms of earthwork construction was provided by the Illinois Land Improvement Contractors Association (ILICA).