|
Swale (geographic Feature)
A swale is a shady spot, or a sunken or marshy place. In US usage in particular, it is a shallow channel with gently sloping sides. Such a swale may be either natural or human-made. Artificial swales are often infiltration basins, designed to manage water runoff, filter pollutants, and increase rainwater infiltration. Bioswales are swales that involve the inclusion of plants or vegetation in their construction, specifically. On land The use of swales has been popularized as a rainwater-harvesting and soil-conservation strategy by Bill Mollison, David Holmgren, and other advocates of permaculture. In this context a swale is usually a water-harvesting ditch on contour, also called a ''contour bund''. Swales as used in permaculture are designed by permaculturalists to slow and capture runoff by spreading it horizontally across the landscape (along an elevation contour line), facilitating runoff infiltration into the soil. This archetypal form of swale is a dug-out, sloped ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Grass Lined Channel NRCS
Poaceae ( ), also called Gramineae ( ), is a large and nearly ubiquitous family of monocotyledonous flowering plants commonly known as grasses. It includes the cereal grasses, bamboos, the grasses of natural grassland and species cultivated in lawns and pasture. The latter are commonly referred to collectively as grass. With around 780 genera and around 12,000 species, the Poaceae is the fifth-largest plant family, following the Asteraceae, Orchidaceae, Fabaceae and Rubiaceae. The Poaceae are the most economically important plant family, including staple foods from domesticated cereal crops such as maize, wheat, rice, oats, barley, and millet for people and as feed for meat-producing animals. They provide, through direct human consumption, just over one-half (51%) of all dietary energy; rice provides 20%, wheat supplies 20%, maize (corn) 5.5%, and other grains 6%. Some members of the Poaceae are used as building materials (bamboo, thatch, and straw); others can provide a so ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Berm
A berm is a level space, shelf, or raised barrier (usually made of Soil compaction, compacted soil) separating areas in a vertical way, especially partway up a long slope. It can serve as a terrace road, track, path, a fortification line, a border wall, border/separation barrier for navigation, good drainage, industry, or other purposes. Etymology The word is from Middle Dutch and came into usage in English via French. Military use History In medieval military engineering, a berm (or berme) was a level space between a parapet or defensive wall and an adjacent steep-walled ditch (fortification), ditch or moat. It was intended to reduce soil pressure on the walls of the excavated part to prevent its collapse. It also meant that debris dislodged from fortifications would not fall into (and fill) a ditch or moat. In the trench warfare of World War I, the name was applied to a similar feature at the lip of a trench, which served mainly as an elbow-rest for riflemen. Modern u ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Landforms
A landform is a land feature on the solid surface of the Earth or other planetary body. They may be natural or may be anthropogenic (caused or influenced by human activity). Landforms together make up a given terrain, and their arrangement in the landscape is known as topography. Landforms include hills, mountains, canyons, and valleys, as well as shoreline features such as bays, peninsulas, and seas, including submerged features such as mid-ocean ridges, volcanoes, and the great oceanic basins. Physical characteristics Landforms are categorized by characteristic physical attributes such as elevation, slope, orientation, structure stratification, rock exposure, and soil type. Gross physical features or landforms include intuitive elements such as berms, cliffs, hills, mounds, peninsulas, ridges, rivers, valleys, volcanoes, and numerous other structural and size-scaled (e.g. ponds vs. lakes, hills vs. mountains) elements including various kinds of inland and oceani ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Environmental Engineering
Environmental engineering is a professional engineering Academic discipline, discipline related to environmental science. It encompasses broad Science, scientific topics like chemistry, biology, ecology, geology, hydraulics, hydrology, microbiology, and mathematics to create solutions that will protect and also improve the health of living organisms and improve the quality of the environment. Environmental engineering is a sub-discipline of civil engineering and chemical engineering. While on the part of civil engineering, the Environmental Engineering is focused mainly on Sanitary Engineering. Environmental engineering applies scientific and engineering principles to improve and maintain the environment to protect human health, protect nature's beneficial Ecosystem, ecosystems, and improve environmental-related enhancement of the quality of human life. Environmental engineers devise solutions for Waste management, wastewater management, Water pollution, water and air pollution co ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Michigan State University
Michigan State University (Michigan State or MSU) is a public university, public Land-grant university, land-grant research university in East Lansing, Michigan, United States. It was founded in 1855 as the Agricultural College of the State of Michigan, the first of its kind in the country. After the introduction of the Morrill Land-Grant Acts, Morrill Act in 1862, the state designated the college a land-grant institution in 1863, making it the first of the land-grant colleges in the United States. The college became coeducational in 1870. Today, Michigan State has facilities all across the state and over 634,000 alumni. Michigan State is a member of the Association of American Universities and is Carnegie Classification of Institutions of Higher Education, classified among "R1: Doctoral Universities – Very high research activity". The university's campus houses the Facility for Rare Isotope Beams, the W. J. Beal Botanical Garden, the Abrams Planetarium, the Wharton Center f ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Federal Highway Administration
The Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) is a division of the United States Department of Transportation that specializes in highway transportation. The agency's major activities are grouped into two programs, the Federal-aid Highway Program and the Federal Lands Highway Program. Its role had previously been performed by the Office of Road Inquiry, Office of Public Roads and the Bureau of Public Roads. History Background With the coming of the bicycle in the 1890s, interest grew regarding the improvement of streets and roads in America. The traditional method of putting the burden on maintaining roads on local landowners was increasingly inadequate. In 1893, the federal Office of Road Inquiry (ORI) was founded; in 1905, it was renamed the Office of Public Roads (OPR) and made a division of the United States Department of Agriculture. Demands grew for local and state government to take charge. With the coming of the automobile, urgent efforts were made to upgrade and moderniz ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Water-sensitive Urban Design
Water-sensitive urban design (WSUD) is a land planning and engineering design approach which integrates the urban water cycle, including stormwater, groundwater, and wastewater management and water supply, into urban design to minimise environmental degradation and improve aesthetic and recreational appeal.BMT WBM 2009, "Evaluating options for water sensitive urban design – a national guide: Prepared by the Joint Steering Committee for Water Sensitive Cities: In delivering Clause 92(ii) of the National Water Initiative", Joint Steering Committee for Water Sensitive Cities (JSCWSC), Canberra, viewed 18 September 2011. WSUD is a term used in the Middle East and Australia and is similar to low-impact development (Canada/US), low-impact development (LID), a term used in the United States; and Sustainable Drainage System (SuDS), a term used in the United Kingdom. Common approaches include reducing potable water use and collecting greywater, wastewater, stormwater, and other runoff ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Stormwater
Stormwater, also written storm water, is water that originates from precipitation (storm), including heavy rain and meltwater from hail and snow. Stormwater can soak into the soil ( infiltrate) and become groundwater, be stored on depressed land surface in ponds and puddles, evaporate back into the atmosphere, or contribute to surface runoff. Most runoff is conveyed directly as surface water to nearby streams, rivers or other large water bodies (wetlands, lakes and oceans) without treatment. In natural landscapes, such as forests, soil absorbs much of the stormwater. Plants also reduce stormwater by improving infiltration, intercepting precipitation as it falls, and by taking up water through their roots. In developed environments, such as cities, unmanaged stormwater can create two major issues: one related to the volume and timing of runoff ( flooding) and the other related to potential contaminants the water is carrying (water pollution). In addition to the pollutants carr ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Rain Garden
Rain gardens, also called bioretention facilities, are one of a variety of practices designed to increase rain runoff reabsorption by the soil. They can also be used to treat polluted stormwater runoff. Rain gardens are designed landscape sites that reduce the flow rate, total quantity, and pollutant load of runoff from impervious urban areas like roofs, driveways, walkways, parking lots, and compacted lawn areas. Rain gardens rely on plants and natural or engineered soil medium to retain stormwater and increase the lag time of infiltration, while remediating and filtering pollutants carried by urban runoff. Rain gardens provide a method to reuse and optimize any rain that falls, reducing or avoiding the need for additional irrigation. A benefit of planting rain gardens is the consequential decrease in ambient air and water temperature, a mitigation that is especially effective in urban areas containing an abundance of impervious surfaces that absorb heat in a phenomenon know ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Keyline Design
Keyline design is a landscaping technique of maximizing the beneficial use of the water resources of a tract of land. The "keyline" is a specific topographic feature related to the natural flow of water on the tract. Keyline design is a system of principles and techniques of developing rural and urban landscapes to optimize use of their water resources. Australian farmer and engineer P. A. Yeomans invented and developed Keyline design in his books ''The Keyline Plan'', ''The Challenge of Landscape'', ''Water For Every Farm'', and ''The City Forest''. Application P. A. Yeomans published the first book on Keyline design in 1954. Yeomans described a system of amplified contour ripping to control rainfall runoff and enable fast flood irrigation of undulating land without the need for terracing it. Keyline designs include irrigation dams equipped with through-the-wall lockpipe systems, gravity feed irrigation, stock water, and yard water. Graded earthen channels may be interlink ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Gutter (other)
Gutter may refer to: Water discharge structures * Rain gutter, used on roofs and in buildings * Street gutter, for drainage of streets Film * ''The Gutter'' (1938 film), a French film * ''The Gutter'' (2024 film), an American film Design and printing * Gutter, in typography, the space between columns of printed text * Gutter, in bookbinding, page edges joined to the spine * Gutter (philately), the space between panes of postage stamps that creates configurations of "gutter pairs" or "gutter blocks" Other uses * Gutters, in bowling and table shuffleboard Table shuffleboard (also known as American shuffleboard, indoor shuffleboard, slingers, shufflepuck, and quoits, sandy table) is a game in which players push metal-and-plastic weighted Puck (sports), pucks (also called ''weights'' or ''quoits' ..., the trough hazards on either side of the playing lane into which the bowling ball or shuffleboard puck may fall * "Gutter" (song), a song by Medina See also * Guter (di ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Contour Trenching
Contour trenching (a.k.a., Continuous Contour Trench or CCT) is an agricultural technique that can be easily applied in arid sub-Sahara areas to allow for water, and soil conservation, and to increase agricultural production. Between two trenches crops can benefit during the growing season (when there is less rain) from the subsoil water reserve gathered during the rainy season. Advantages Immediate advantages are the following: *The rain water does not immediately run off the hill, *Water does not evaporate uselessly *The water balance is enhanced *Crops do not suffer later on from water shortage, * Fertile soil particles are not lost by water and wind erosion. *When the sun shines on the water, light and heat are reflected onto plants on the northern shore of the trench, this effect and the increased humidity create micro climates in the area. These micro climates can support plants from different hardiness zones. Techniques Trenches can be artificially dug along the contour ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
