the aim of this field exercise is to enable you to visit a range of sites where bioengineering works have already been implemented, or will be implemented very soon. this will enable you to apply much of the work that you have carried out in the course so far to real sites.
during the day you will:
- critically assess the sites from a bioengineering site point of view;
- discuss the already completed bioengineering works and the present
bioengineering and civil engineering options for each site;
- determine future strategies for bioengineering for each site.
you will work in pairs at each site.
at each of the four sites you will be introduced to the works, which have been done, or are about to be done, and the main features of the site will be indicated to you
you should then spend 20 minutes with your partner, carefully examining the site and assessing the works. consider the following points:
- what is the material?
- what external factors are or were affecting the site?
- what was the original cause of failure/erosion?
- what were the actual erosion processes at work in every part of the site?
you could draw a sketch to show them.
- how long ago was it treated?
- what were the treatments? are there signs of anything that failed?
- what was successful in terms of stabilisation/erosion control?
- how appropriate were the bioengineering treatments?
- are the civil engineering structures strong enough? are they too big? could
they have been reduced and more bioengineering used? if so, how?
- what needs to be done now? identify any outstanding requirements
to achieve the best possible bioengineering results.
once you have assessed the site, there will be a discussion on the findings. please be ready to contribute to this.
there are no further handouts, so please take all the notes you want to have from the assessment and discussion periods.
