Tracks and roads: maintenance and monitoring

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Maintenance
Continuing maintenance (grading, drain cleaning) is essential, once every six months in hard setting soils, once every three months in loose soils and areas with a build up of leaf material. Poor maintenance can compromise good design. Vigilant maintenance means:

proper disposal of cleared material
keep all planned drains operating
keep road crown effective
avoid development of earth windrows
no 'V' shaped clearing of table drains (keep drains broad bottomed to reduce velocity of run-off)
not cutting into toe of batters
avoid damaging discharge areas.

Monitoring
If an existing road is a source of erosion and sedimentation problems, some or all of the following indicators will be visible:

turbidity in streams immediately downstream

turbidity of road run-off

table drains will show:

presence of scour
V' shaped cross-section
undercutting of batters

water discharge zone:

heavy accumulation of sediments
close to streams and drainage lines

batter condition:

low level of vegetative cover
presence of rill or sheet erosion
presence of slumps.

track surface condition:

absence of crown
rilling, ruts, boggy patches etc.

As part of maintenance, road condition should be monitored regularly. It is especially valuable to observe the road during rainfall.

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