Wednesday, November 15, 2006
228-12

Target Embankment Erosion Effects on Small Watershed.

Niels Svendsen, CEERD-CN-C, PO Box 9005, Champaign, IL 61826-9005, Dick Gebhart, U.S. Army Eng. Res. and Dev. Cntr, 2902 Newmark Dr., Champaign, IL 61826-9005, and Prasanta K. Kalita, Univ of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, 1304 W Pennsylvania Ave, Urbana, IL 61801.

Soil erosion from military target edifices is a recurrent problem that contributes to overall soil loss on military training ranges.  Although they comprise a small percentage of the overall range footprint (< 5%), range structures are suspected of contributing significantly to soil erosion on military training areas.  Little research has been conducted to quantify soil movement from range embankments and one of the greatest challenges to conducting this type of research is determining a low-tech cost effective methodology that can withstand heavy training intervals.  This study presents one possible methodology and examines the results obtained from a moving target emplacement embankment plot.  Soil erosion over the monitoring period was observed to greatly exceed tolerable soil loss limits.  Additionally, the embankment monitoring  results were input into WEPP to model soil movement using this methodology.

Handout (.pdf format, 2068.0 kb)