A GIS tool for the design and assessment of road drain spacing to minimize stream pollution: RoadCAT
Date
2011
Authors
Thompson, Christopher
Hicks, Andrew
Sun, Xiaoying
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
Modelling and Simulation Society of Australia and New Zealand Inc.
Abstract
Unsealed roads are an important source of runoff and sediment which can affect the hydrology and water quality of streams. The Road Connectivity Assessment Tool (RoadCAT) is being developed based on the conceptual framework of volume-to-breakthrough and hydrological connectivity between roads and streams in managed forest environments that allows identification of the different types of delivery pathways and estimation of the runoff volumes delivered through them. RoadCAT is built in ArcGIS's model builder using existing and customised toolboxes. RoadCAT uses rainfall event intensity data, a digital elevation model, roads vector layer and drain points layer (if assessing existing drains) to model drains likely to cause gully erosion at drain outlet, drains connecting with adjacent streams, volume of runoff likely to connect and quantity of suspended sediment potentially transported to the stream based on empirical event-based models. This paper reports on the development of the RoadCAT tool and its application to a South Australian Water Corporation reserve in which new roads are being constructed for reserve management and fire fighting access, and the opportunity presented to model an unconstrained drain spacing design to prevent gully erosion at drain outlets and minimise road runoff connectivity to reduce stream pollution with suspended sediment.
Description
Keywords
Keywords: Assessment tool; Conceptual frameworks; Delivery pathways; Digital elevation model; Drain spacings; Event-based model; Fire fighting; Geographical information systems; Gully erosion; Hydrological connectivity; Intensity data; Managed forest; Rainfall even Erosion; Geographical Information System (GIS); Model builder; Road runoff; Water quality
Citation
Collections
Source
Proceedings of MODSIM 2011 International Congress on Modelling and Simulation
Type
Conference paper
Book Title
Entity type
Access Statement
License Rights
DOI
Restricted until
2037-12-31
Downloads
File
Description