This is a picture indicates the drainage system in our Boarding school, which could be considered as a failure, I think. From the picture, it is clearly showed that the purpose of building such drainage system is to drive excess water away from the ground level. From the hole on the wall, we can predict that ground flow will occur. This is due to the fact that the lower level of the drainage. Water flows from high altitude to low altitude. In this sense, it would be nature to drive all the water when experiencing raining days. However, there is a problem underlying with this whole system. As clearly shown from the picture that water accumulates there, in this case, the whole drainage does not work within its full potential. We can clearly tell that water cannot go through the concrete wall. In this sense, we could try to build more holes so that water can come through.
Shengmu
OMG hahaha yeah i agree this drainage system is not really working but hey, what do you mean by water not going through the concrete wall? Isn't drains supposed to be there for precipitation to go directly in, while infiltration occurs at the same time for water to flow to channel storage via throughflow? haha i don't get why there's a need for there to be holes in the concrete wall!
ReplyDeleteoh that's shumin btw. (:
ReplyDeleteHi this is carolyn. I think it will be difficult and perhaps extremely costly to make changes to the existing drainage system of the boarding school's and that perhaps our limited funds should be used to create a more cosy environment for the students instead. ;]
ReplyDeleteSo I thought of this plausible solution:
1)Increase vegetation (i.e. plant lush fields of green) since plant roots encourage the flow of rainwater into the soil which then increases the infiltration capacity of the soil
2)However, since the field capacity of the soil remains constant(i.e.it is essentially the same kind of soil) an increase in infiltration capacity may result in greater overland flow. Hence maybe soil of a different kind (e.g. clay soil) may be poured into the original to increase the average field capacity of the soil. Hopefully, this new average will be sufficient to overcome the problem of possible increment in overland flow of the soil.
However, I am not sure what kind of vegetation or soil is economically viable for the boarding school or whether it is the most low-cost solution with maximum efficiency and minimum maintenance hence this solution is flawed and problematic. ;]