Category: Water Resources

What Is Riprap? And Why It Rocks!

What is Riprap? Riprap describes a range of rocky material placed along shorelines, bridge foundations, steep slopes, and other shoreline structures to protect from scour and erosion. Rocks used range from 4 inches to over 2 feet. The size of the rock needed on a project depends on the steepness of the slope and how… Read More »

Structures, Strategies for Dealing With Floods

“Raindrops keep fallin’ on my head,” B.J. Thomas famously sang in the hit song from the 1969 classic film Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid.” The song, written by Burt Bacharach and Hall David, may have aimed to evoke fond memories of romantic strolls during gentle April showers. But when rain (or any other form… Read More »

What Is Bridge Scour? Why Should You Care?

The most common cause of bridge failures is from floods scouring bed material surrounding bridge foundations. What is scour? Simply put, scour is the engineering term for the erosion of soil surrounding a bridge foundation (piers and abutments). Bridge scour occurs when fast-moving water around a bridge removes sediment from… Read More »