Systematic Reliability-Based Environmental Design of Erosion for Efficient Engineered Landscape Profiling
Publication: Journal of Environmental Engineering
Volume 129, Issue 7
Abstract
Evolving environmental legislation has received increased attention worldwide in the last two decades, reported by Bradfield, Schultz, and Stone in 1996 in Environmental management in the Australian minerals and energy industries. The focus of concern by the industry, environmental regulatory agencies, and members of the public is the potential impacts associated with unstable landscapes which sometimes lead to slope failures, especially in hillside development. Engineered landscape profiles, though stable at the end of construction, may deteriorate over time due to erosion. There is thus a need to increase the base of knowledge on the existing practices of engineered profile design, hillside development, reshaping practices, and erosion control. With escalating production costs and the keen competitiveness in the industry world wide, the necessity to increase the efficiency of engineered profile development is further gaining prominence. This paper reviews the advancement of erosion management research in the industry, economics of landscape profiling, the practical application of the Point Estimate probabilistic technique, and the optimum design selection for the systematic planning and reshaping of engineered landscape profiles. The probabilistic engineering design erosion nomographs developed is useful in determining and illustrating quantitatively the reliability of final engineered landscape designs and the reshaping costs involved for different soil texture types. Landscape designs, which meet environmentally acceptable levels of reliability against erosion failure at optimum earthmoving reshaping costs, can be obtained using this probabilistic engineering design approach whilst satisfying environmental standards and community expectations for erosion minimisation.
Get full access to this article
View all available purchase options and get full access to this article.
References
Badoux, R. A. J. (1991). “Introduction to Bayesian methods in reliability.” Bayesian methods in reliability, P. Sander and R. Badoux, eds., Kluwer Academic, Dordrecht, The Netherlands, 1–13.
Bell, L. C. (1996). “Rehabilitation of disturbed land.” Environmental management in the Australian minerals and energy industries—Principles and practices, D. Mulligan, ed., UNSW, Sydney, Australia, 227–261.
Bureau of Meteorology (1999). Climatic data—Emerald site (Central Queensland, Australia), Bureau of Meteorology Australia.
Caterpillar (1997). Caterpillar performance handbook-Edition 28, Caterpillar Inc., Ill., 1.35–17.50.
Chisci, G. (1981). “Upland erosion: Evaluation and measurement.” Proc. of Erosion and Sediment Transport Symposium, Int. Association of Hydrological Science, Reading, Berks, 331–349.
Christian, J. T., and Baecher, G. B.(1999). “Point estimate method as numerical quadrature.” J. Geotech. Geoenviron. Eng., 125(9), 779–786.
Evans, K. G. (1992). “Determination of interrill erodibility parameters for selected overburden spoil types from Central Queensland open-cut coal mines.” MSc thesis, Univ. of Queensland, Brisbane, Australia, 5–80.
Foster, G. R., Lane, L. J., Nowlin, J. D., Laflen, J. M., and Young, R. A.(1981). “Estimating erosion and sediment yield on field-sized areas.” Trans. ASAE, (24), 1253–1262.
Gray, D. H., and Sotir, R. B. (1996). Biotechnical and soil bioengineering slope stabilization, Wiley, New York, 19–38.
Gregory, G. (1988). Decision analysis, Plenum Press, New York, 117–156.
Harr, M. E. (1987). Reliability-based design in civil engineering, Dover, New York, 205–220.
Harr, M. E.(1989). “Probabilistic estimates for multivariate analyses.” Appl. Math. Model., (13), 976–981.
Hudson, N. (1995). Soil conservation, B. T. Batsford, London, 126–285.
Komatsu Ltd. (1997). Specifications and application handbook, 18th Ed., Komatsu Ltd., Tokyo, 1B1–15.30.
Little, T. N., and Jiang, J. (1992). “The application of fuzzy set theory and expert system technology to blasting.” Proc., Western Australian Conf. on Mining Geomechanics, T. Szwedzicki et al., eds., Western Australian School of Mines, Kalgoorlie, Australia, 427–437.
Loch, R. J., and Silburn, D. M.(1993). “Erosion processes and containment transport.” Environ. Soil Sci., 30, 893–912.
McDonald, R. C., Isbell, R. F., Speight, J. G., Walker, J., and Hopkins, M. S. (1990). Australian soil and land survey field handbook, Inkata Press, Melbourne, Australia, 198.
Morgan, R. P. C. (1986). Soil erosion and conservation, Longman Scientific and Technical, Harlow, 10–290.
Nearing, M. A., Foster, G. R., Lane, L. J., and Finkner, S. C.(1989). “A process-based soil erosion model for USDA-Water erosion prediction project technology.” Trans. ASAE, 32(5), 1587–1593.
Onstad, C. A., and Foster, G. R.(1975). “Erosion modelling on a watershed.” Trans. ASAE, 18(2), 288–292.
Read, J. R. L. (1994). “Risk analysis and uncertainty in open pit mine designs.” Proc., 4th Large Open Pit Mining Conf. Australian Institute of Mining and Metallurgy, Parkville, Victoria, Australia, 139–143.
Renard, K. G., Laflen, J. M., Foster G. R., and McCool, D. K. (1994). “The revised universal soil loss equation.” Soil erosion research methods, St. Lucie Press, Delray Beach, Fla., 106–124.
Rose, C. W. (1994). “Research progress on soil erosion processes and a basis for soil conservation practices.” Soil erosion research methods, St. Lucie Press, Delray Beach, Fla., 159–177.
Rosenblueth, E.(1981). “Two-point estimates in probabilities.” Appl. Math. Model., (5), 329–335.
Rubenstein, R. Y. (1981). Simulation and the Monte Carlo method, Wiley, New York, 278.
Shachter, R. D. (1990). “Evaluating influence diagrams.” Readings in uncertain reasoning G. Shafer and J. Pearl, eds., Morgan Kaufmann, San Mateo, Calif., 79–90.
Spetzler, C. S., and von Holstein, S. C. (1994). “Probability encoding in decision analysis.” The principles and application of decision analysis, R. A. Howard and J. Matheson, eds., Strategic Decisions Group, Menlo Park, Calif., 601–625.
Tabucanon, M. T. (1988). Multiple criteria decision making in industry, Elsevier, Amsterdam, 24–25.
Tan, V.(2000). “Landslides: Investigation, mitigation and case histories.” Jurutera, 2000(5), 21–24.
Toy, T. J., and Foster, G. R. (1998). Guidelines for the use of the Revised Universal Soil Loss Equation (RUSLE) on mined lands, construction sites and reclaimed lands, Office of Technology Transfer-Western Regional Coordinating Center, Denver.
Westcott, P. C. (1990). “Capital and operating cost estimation for open pit mining equipment.” Proc., Mining Industry Capital and Operating Cost Estimation Conf., The Australasian Institute of Mining and Metallurgy, Melbourne, Australia, 35–43.
Williams, J. R., and Berndt, H. D.(1972). “Sediment yield computed with universal equation.” J. Hydraul. Div., Am. Soc. Civ. Eng., 98(12), 2087–2098.
Wischmeier, W. H., and Smith, D. D. (1978). “Predicting rainfall erosion losses—A guide to conservation planning.” Agricultural handbook No. 537., U.S. Dept. of Agriculture, Los Angeles.
Information & Authors
Information
Published In
Copyright
Copyright © 2003 American Society of Civil Engineers.
History
Received: Nov 20, 2001
Accepted: Jul 19, 2002
Published online: Jun 13, 2003
Published in print: Jul 2003
Authors
Metrics & Citations
Metrics
Citations
Download citation
If you have the appropriate software installed, you can download article citation data to the citation manager of your choice. Simply select your manager software from the list below and click Download.