Principles and Practices of Grading, Drainage and Road Alignment: An Ecologic Approach

This text covers the basic principles of grading, drainage, and road alignment. Grading is simply the manipulation of ground form, and is in a sense the backbone of set design. This document presents an easy-to-do, nontechnical approach grading. In fact, 90 percent of the mathematics associated with engineering construction has been eliminated.

This book can be used as an introductory text, and is divided into ten sections, which conforms to most college quarter time schedules. The text has been prepared for all designers - civil engineers, landscape architects, architects, construction engineers and horticulturalists. Our object is to help designer becomes fully versed in these principles so that they may be capable of manipulating ground form from a design and ecological point of view. The book has narrowed the topic to two principles of grading- 1) How to grade, i.e., mastery of methods and techniques for manipulation of earth forms and, 2) When not to grade, i.e., acknowledge constraints to proper grading including soil type, mechanical problems, cost problems, alternative design solutions, esthetic and ecological considerations, for example.