Evaluation of different soil and water conservation measures suitable for expressway construction in arid areas in northwest China

Abstract

In order to determine the most efficient soil and water conservation measure for different engineering units, the volume weight of soil (VWS), soil water content (SWC), soil porosity, soil erosion resistance (SER), anti-scour coefficients (ASC), and vegetation coverage of 12 protective measures and four unprotected measures were investigated. In addition, 16 water conservation measures were evaluated using the gray correlation method. Our results suggest that SWC, SER, ASC, and vegetation coverage of a square grid area were higher than those of other measures on the filling slope (p < 0.05). However, in the excavated slope, SWC, SER, ASC, and vegetation coverage of the unprotected measures area were higher than those in the protected measures (p < 0.05). Our results also indicate that the gray comprehensive evaluation value of arch framework measures in the fill slope and unprotected natural recovery measures of the excavated side slope were significantly greater than those of other measures (p < 0.05). This finding indicates that the effect of soil and water conservation on these measures were better than others. Our findings provide an indication for the implementation of soil and water conservation measures for expressways situated in arid areas in China.

Keywords:

• measures
• soil and water conservation
• gray correlation method
• expressway

Acknowledgments

We would like to thank the staff of the Xinjiang Traffic Construction Administration. Special thanks to Wei Li, Wanpeng Cai, Ze Yi, Huishan Cui, Wei Wang, and Xueping Chen for their help with sampling and measurements in the field and laboratory.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Additional information

Funding

This study was supported by the Science and technology projects of Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region Transportation Department (No.2014–02 and No.2016–03).