Erosion Risk-Protection Tool for Construction Sites

Bruce Wilson, Professor
Sailaja Gurram, Research Assistant
Aleksey Sheshukov, Research Associate
Reid Pulley, Graduate Student

Funding Source

Minnesota Department of Transportation, Minnesota Local Road Research Board

Objective

The overall goal of this project is to develop a theoretical framework for the design of effective erosion control strategies for construction sites. The specific research objectives are to:

• Assess the needs and demands of erosion control practitioners working with construction projects.
• Develop a simulation tool that allows practitioners to evaluate the risk of erosion on construction sites and that has a suitable framework to allow easier expansion to meet the future needs of the road construction industry.
• Evaluate the usefulness of the simulation tool using the experience of seasoned erosion control professionals.

Need or Impact

Results of this study have broad implications for construction engineers and roadside vegetation managers at the city, county, and state levels in Minnesota. NPDES (National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System) permit programs limit erosion from construction sites of one acre or more in size. Currently, thousands of dollars are spent on expensive erosion control blankets and other sediment control measures. Little is known about the risk associated with the selection of any particular erosion control strategy. The proposed project will provide a methodology for risk assessment. The long-term goal is to have a tool to allow rational cost-effective decisions to control erosion and sediment from construction sites.

Project Status

Meetings have been held with erosion control practitioners working with construction projects. These meetings have defined the scope of the modeling efforts. A weather simulation module has been developed and tested. This module is called WINDS, which is an acronym for Weather Inputs for Nonpoint Data Simultions. The WINDS module requires statistical analyses of observed weather data. A program was written to perform these analyses and used to generate the input parameters for WINDS at more than 200 weather stations in the United States. Algorithms for predicting infiltration, excess, flow rates, plant growth, and erosion/sediment modules have been written and are being incorporated into the model.