Road surface drainage, channel initiation, and slope instability

Abstract

Field surveys of road drainage concentration at three sites in the western United States are used to test simple models relating channel initiation and shallow landsliding to ground slope and contributing area thresholds. The form of boundaries between data for locations where road drainage concentration is associated with either shallow landsliding, channel initiation by overland flow, or no observable geomorphic effect is consistent with theoretically derived drainage area‐slope relations. Comparison of survey data with results of previous studies in these areas indicates that the drainage area required to support a channel head is smaller for road‐related runoff than for undisturbed slopes. Contrary to current land management paradigms in the Pacific Northwest, drainage concentration from ridgetop roads may cause both landsliding and integration of the channel and road networks. Road drainage concentration increases the effective length of the channel network and strongly influences the distribution of erosional processes in each of the study areas. The approach of using field reconnaissance to establish thresholds for erosion associated with road drainage provides a useful method to define regional criteria for road design that should reduce impacts on downstream channel systems.