Section through railway track and foundation

Grading in

civil engineering Civil engineering is a professional engineering discipline that deals with the design, construction, and maintenance of the physical and naturally built environment, including public works such as roads, bridges, canals, dams, airports, sewa ...

and landscape architectural construction is the work of ensuring a level base, or one with a specified

slope In mathematics, the slope or gradient of a line is a number that describes both the ''direction'' and the ''steepness'' of the line. Slope is often denoted by the letter ''m''; there is no clear answer to the question why the letter ''m'' is use ...

, for a construction work such as a foundation, the base course for a

road A road is a linear way for the conveyance of traffic that mostly has an improved surface for use by vehicles (motorized and non-motorized) and pedestrians. Unlike streets, the main function of roads is transportation. There are many types o ...

or a

railway Rail transport (also known as train transport) is a means of transport that transfers passengers and goods on wheeled vehicles running on rails, which are incorporated in tracks. In contrast to road transport, where the vehicles run on a p ...

, or

landscape A landscape is the visible features of an area of land, its landforms, and how they integrate with natural or man-made features, often considered in terms of their aesthetic appeal.''New Oxford American Dictionary''. A landscape includes the ...

and

garden A garden is a planned space, usually outdoors, set aside for the cultivation, display, and enjoyment of plants and other forms of nature. The single feature identifying even the wildest wild garden is ''control''. The garden can incorporate bot ...

improvements, or surface drainage. The earthworks created for such a purpose are often called the sub-grade or finished contouring (see diagram).

Regrading

Regrading is the process of grading for raising and/or lowering the levels of land. Such a project can also be referred to as a regrade. Regrading may be done on a small scale (as in preparation of a house site)Trees and Home Construction: Minimizing the impact of construction activity on trees
University of Ohio Extension Bulletin 870-99. Accessed online 16 October 2007. or on quite a large scale (as in major reconfiguration of the terrain of a city, such as the Denny Regrade in

Seattle Seattle ( ) is a seaport city on the West Coast of the United States. It is the seat of King County, Washington. With a 2020 population of 737,015, it is the largest city in both the state of Washington and the Pacific Northwest region o ...

). Regrading is typically performed to make land more level (flatter), in which case it is sometimes called levelling.) Levelling can have the consequence of making other nearby slopes steeper, and potentially unstable or prone to erosion.

Transportation

In the case of gravel roads and

earthworks Earthworks may refer to: Construction *Earthworks (archaeology), human-made constructions that modify the land contour *Earthworks (engineering), civil engineering works created by moving or processing quantities of soil *Earthworks (military), mi ...

for certain purposes, grading forms not just the base but the cover and surface of the finished construction, and is often called finished grade.

Process

It is often done using heavy machinery like

bulldozer A bulldozer or dozer (also called a crawler) is a large, motorized machine equipped with a metal blade to the front for pushing material: soil, sand, snow, rubble, or rock during construction work. It travels most commonly on continuous track ...

s and excavators to roughly prepare an area and then using a grader for a finer finish.

Environmental design

In the environmental design professions, grading and

regrading Grading in civil engineering and landscape architectural construction is the work of ensuring a level base, or one with a specified slope, for a construction work such as a foundation, the base course for a road or a railway, or landscape a ...

are a specifications and construction component in

landscape design Landscape design is an independent profession and a design and art tradition, practiced by landscape designers, combining nature and culture. In contemporary practice, landscape design bridges the space between landscape architecture and ga ...

, landscape architecture, and

architecture Architecture is the art and technique of designing and building, as distinguished from the skills associated with construction. It is both the process and the product of sketching, conceiving, planning, designing, and constructing buildings ...

projects. It is used for buildings or outdoor amenities regarding foundations and footings,

terracing and stabilizing, aesthetic contouring, and directing

surface runoff Surface runoff (also known as overland flow) is the flow of water occurring on the ground surface when excess rainwater, stormwater, meltwater, or other sources, can no longer sufficiently rapidly infiltrate in the soil. This can occur when t ...

drainage of stormwater and domestic/irrigation runoff flows.

Purposes

Reasons for regrading include: * Enabling construction on lands that were previously too varied and/or steeply sloped. * Enabling transportation along routes that were previously too varied and/or steep. * Changing drainage patterns and rerouting surface flow. * Improving the stability of terrain adjacent to developments.

Consequences

Potential problems and consequences from regrading include: * Soil and/or

instability * Terrain prone to

erosion Erosion is the action of surface processes (such as water flow or wind) that removes soil, rock, or dissolved material from one location on the Earth's crust, and then transports it to another location where it is deposited. Erosion is d ...

* Ecological impacts,

habitat In ecology, the term habitat summarises the array of resources, physical and biotic factors that are present in an area, such as to support the survival and reproduction of a particular species. A species habitat can be seen as the physical ...

destruction, terrestrial and/or aquatic biological losses. * Drainage problems (surface and/or subsurface flow) for areas not considered in the regrading plan.Barry Stone
Adjacent Property Regrading Creates Drainage Problem for Homeowner
doityourself.com. Accessed online 16 October 2007. * Loss of aesthetic natural landscape

topography Topography is the study of the forms and features of land surfaces. The topography of an area may refer to the land forms and features themselves, or a description or depiction in maps. Topography is a field of geoscience and planetary sc ...

and/or historical cultural landscapes.

References

External links

* Matusik, John
"Grading and Earthworks"
in ''The Land Development Handbook'', 2004.
''Gravel Roads Construction and Maintenance Guide''
Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) and the South Dakota Local Technical Assistance Program (SDLTAP), 2015.
"How to Grade Gravel Roads"
in ''Gravel Roads, Soil Stabilization, Soil-Sement®'' by Frank Elswick, 2017.
''Recommended Practices Manual: A Guideline for Maintenance and Service of Unpaved Roads''
Choctawhatchee, Pea and Yellow Rivers Watershed Management Authority, 2000. {{Authority control Construction Artificial landforms Gardening aids Landscape architecture Road construction