Section through railway track and foundation

Grading in

civil engineering Civil engineering is a professional engineering discipline that deals with the design, construction, and maintenance of the physical and naturally built environment, including public works such as roads, bridges, canals, dams, airports, sewage ...

and landscape architectural construction is the work of ensuring a level base, or one with a specified

slope In mathematics, the slope or gradient of a line is a number that describes both the ''direction'' and the ''steepness'' of the line. Slope is often denoted by the letter ''m''; there is no clear answer to the question why the letter ''m'' is use ...

, for a construction work such as a

foundation Foundation may refer to: * Foundation (nonprofit), a type of charitable organization ** Foundation (United States law), a type of charitable organization in the U.S. ** Private foundation, a charitable organization that, while serving a good cause ...

, the

base course The base course or basecourse in pavements is a layer of material in an asphalt roadway, race track, riding arena, or sporting field. It is located under the surface layer consisting of the ''wearing course'' and sometimes an extra ''binder cour ...

for a

road A road is a linear way for the conveyance of traffic that mostly has an improved surface for use by vehicles (motorized and non-motorized) and pedestrians. Unlike streets, the main function of roads is transportation. There are many types of ...

or a

railway Rail transport (also known as train transport) is a means of transport that transfers passengers and goods on wheeled vehicles running on rails, which are incorporated in tracks. In contrast to road transport, where the vehicles run on a pre ...

, or

landscape A landscape is the visible features of an area of land, its landforms, and how they integrate with natural or man-made features, often considered in terms of their aesthetic appeal.''New Oxford American Dictionary''. A landscape includes the ...

and

garden A garden is a planned space, usually outdoors, set aside for the cultivation, display, and enjoyment of plants and other forms of nature. The single feature identifying even the wildest wild garden is ''control''. The garden can incorporate both ...

improvements, or surface drainage. The earthworks created for such a purpose are often called the sub-grade or finished contouring (see diagram).

Regrading

Regrading is the process of grading for raising and/or lowering the levels of land. Such a project can also be referred to as a regrade. Regrading may be done on a small scale (as in preparation of a house site)Trees and Home Construction: Minimizing the impact of construction activity on trees
University of Ohio Extension Bulletin 870-99. Accessed online 16 October 2007. or on quite a large scale (as in major reconfiguration of the terrain of a city, such as the

Denny Regrade The Denny Triangle is a neighborhood in Seattle, Washington, United States, that stretches north of the central business district to the grounds of Seattle Center. Its generally flat terrain was originally a steep hill, taken down as part of a ...

Seattle Seattle ( ) is a seaport city on the West Coast of the United States. It is the seat of King County, Washington. With a 2020 population of 737,015, it is the largest city in both the state of Washington and the Pacific Northwest regio ...

). Regrading is typically performed to make land more level (flatter), in which case it is sometimes called levelling.) Levelling can have the consequence of making other nearby slopes steeper, and potentially unstable or prone to erosion.

Transportation

In the case of

gravel road A gravel road is a type of unpaved road surfaced with gravel that has been brought to the site from a quarry or stream bed. They are common in less-developed nations, and also in the rural areas of developed nations such as Canada and the Unite ...

s and

earthworks Earthworks may refer to: Construction *Earthworks (archaeology), human-made constructions that modify the land contour * Earthworks (engineering), civil engineering works created by moving or processing quantities of soil *Earthworks (military), m ...

for certain purposes, grading forms not just the base but the cover and surface of the finished construction, and is often called finished grade.

Process

It is often done using heavy machinery like

bulldozer A bulldozer or dozer (also called a crawler) is a large, motorized machine equipped with a metal blade to the front for pushing material: soil, sand, snow, rubble, or rock during construction work. It travels most commonly on continuous track ...

s and

excavator Excavators are heavy construction equipment consisting of a boom, dipper (or stick), bucket and cab on a rotating platform known as the "house". The house sits atop an undercarriage with tracks or wheels. They are a natural progression fro ...

s to roughly prepare an area and then using a

grader A grader, also commonly referred to as a road grader, motor grader, or simply a blade, is a form of heavy equipment with a long blade used to create a flat surface during grading. Although the earliest models were towed behind horses, and lat ...

for a finer finish.

Environmental design

In the

environmental design Environmental design is the process of addressing surrounding environmental parameters when devising plans, programs, policies, buildings, or products. It seeks to create spaces that will enhance the natural, social, cultural and physical environm ...

professions, grading and

regrading Grading in civil engineering and landscape architectural construction is the work of ensuring a level base, or one with a specified slope, for a construction work such as a foundation, the base course for a road or a railway, or landscape and ga ...

are a specifications and construction component in

landscape design Landscape design is an independent profession and a design and art tradition, practiced by landscape designers, combining nature and culture. In contemporary practice, landscape design bridges the space between landscape architecture and garde ...

landscape architecture Landscape architecture is the design of outdoor areas, landmarks, and structures to achieve environmental, social-behavioural, or aesthetic outcomes. It involves the systematic design and general engineering of various structures for constructio ...

, and

architecture Architecture is the art and technique of designing and building, as distinguished from the skills associated with construction. It is both the process and the product of sketching, conceiving, planning, designing, and constructing building ...

projects. It is used for buildings or outdoor amenities regarding foundations and footings,

terracing and stabilizing, aesthetic contouring, and directing

surface runoff Surface runoff (also known as overland flow) is the flow of water occurring on the ground surface when excess rainwater, stormwater, meltwater, or other sources, can no longer sufficiently rapidly infiltrate in the soil. This can occur when th ...

drainage of

stormwater Stormwater, also spelled storm water, is water that originates from precipitation (storm), including heavy rain and meltwater from hail and snow. Stormwater can soak into the soil ( infiltrate) and become groundwater, be stored on depressed la ...

and domestic/irrigation runoff flows.

Purposes

Reasons for regrading include: * Enabling construction on lands that were previously too varied and/or steeply sloped. * Enabling transportation along routes that were previously too varied and/or steep. * Changing drainage patterns and rerouting surface flow. * Improving the stability of terrain adjacent to developments.

Consequences

Potential problems and consequences from regrading include: * Soil and/or

instability * Terrain prone to

erosion Erosion is the action of surface processes (such as water flow or wind) that removes soil, rock, or dissolved material from one location on the Earth's crust, and then transports it to another location where it is deposited. Erosion is distin ...

Ecological Ecology () is the study of the relationships between living organisms, including humans, and their physical environment. Ecology considers organisms at the individual, population, community, ecosystem, and biosphere level. Ecology overlaps wi ...

impacts,

habitat In ecology, the term habitat summarises the array of resources, physical and biotic factors that are present in an area, such as to support the survival and reproduction of a particular species. A species habitat can be seen as the physical ...

destruction, terrestrial and/or aquatic biological losses. * Drainage problems (surface and/or subsurface flow) for areas not considered in the regrading plan.Barry Stone
Adjacent Property Regrading Creates Drainage Problem for Homeowner
doityourself.com. Accessed online 16 October 2007. * Loss of aesthetic

natural landscape A natural landscape is the original landscape that exists before it is acted upon by human culture Culture () is an umbrella term which encompasses the social behavior, institutions, and norms found in human societies, as well as the kn ...

topography Topography is the study of the forms and features of land surfaces. The topography of an area may refer to the land forms and features themselves, or a description or depiction in maps. Topography is a field of geoscience and planetary sci ...

and/or historical

cultural landscape Cultural landscape is a term used in the fields of geography, ecology, and heritage studies, to describe a symbiosis of human activity and environment. As defined by the World Heritage Committee, it is the "cultural properties hatrepresent the co ...

References

External links

* Matusik, John
"Grading and Earthworks"
in ''The Land Development Handbook'', 2004.
''Gravel Roads Construction and Maintenance Guide''
Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) and the South Dakota Local Technical Assistance Program (SDLTAP), 2015.
"How to Grade Gravel Roads"
in ''Gravel Roads, Soil Stabilization, Soil-Sement®'' by Frank Elswick, 2017.
''Recommended Practices Manual: A Guideline for Maintenance and Service of Unpaved Roads''
Choctawhatchee, Pea and Yellow Rivers Watershed Management Authority, 2000. {{Authority control Construction Artificial landforms Gardening aids Landscape architecture Road construction