Ditch

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A ditch in the Netherlands Sloot.JPG
A ditch in the Netherlands
Ditches at the Ouse Washes nature reserve. Ouse Ditches.JPG
Ditches at the Ouse Washes nature reserve.
Waterplants growing in a ditch in the Netherlands, showing Sagittaria sagittifolia to the right. Waterplanten sloot alphen aan den rijn.JPG
Waterplants growing in a ditch in the Netherlands, showing Sagittaria sagittifolia to the right.
Major ditch of Sueca, Valencian Community 1. Canos de Sueca i Sequia Major (Pais Valencia).jpg
Major ditch of Sueca, Valencian Community

A ditch is a small to moderate trench created to channel water. A ditch can be used for drainage, to drain water from low-lying areas, alongside roadways or fields, or to channel water from a more distant source for plant irrigation. Ditches are commonly seen around farmland, especially in areas that have required drainage, such as The Fens in eastern England and much of the Netherlands.

Contents

Roadside ditches may provide a hazard to motorists and cyclists, whose vehicles may crash into them and get damaged, flipped over, or stuck and cause major injury, especially in poor weather conditions and rural areas.

Etymology

In Anglo-Saxon, the word dïc already existed and was pronounced "deek" in northern England and "deetch" in the south. The origins of the word lie in digging a trench and forming the upcast soil into a bank alongside it. This practice has meant that the name dïc was given to either the excavation or the bank, and evolved to both the words "dike"/"dyke" and "ditch".

Thus Offa's Dyke is a combined structure and Car Dyke is a trench, though it once had raised banks as well. In the English Midlands and East Anglia, a dyke is what a ditch is in the south of England, a property-boundary marker or drainage channel. Where it carries a stream, it may be called a running dike as in Rippingale Running Dike, which leads water from the catchwater drain, Car Dyke, to the South Forty Foot Drain in Lincolnshire (TF1427). The Weir Dike is a soak dike in Bourne North Fen, near Twenty and alongside the River Glen.

Sustainability of drainage ditches

Drainage ditches play major roles in agriculture throughout the world. Improper drainage systems accelerate water contamination, excessively desiccate soils during seasonal drought, and become a financial burden to maintain. Industrial earth-moving equipment facilitates maintenance of straight drainage trenches, but entrenchment results in increasing environmental and eventually profound economic costs over time. [1]

Sustainable channel design can result in ditches that are largely self-maintaining due to natural geomorphological equilibrium. Slowed net siltation and erosion result in net reduction in sediment transport. Encouraging development of a natural stream sinuosity and a multi-terraced channel cross section appear to be key to maintain both peak ditch drainage capacity, and minimum net pollution and nutrient transport. [2]

Flooding can be a major cause of recurring crop loss—particularly in heavy soils—and can severely disrupt urban economies as well. Subsurface drainage to ditches offers a way to remove excess water from agricultural fields, or vital urban spaces, without the erosion rates and pollution transport that results from direct surface runoff. However, excess drainage results in recurring drought induced crop yield losses and more severe urban heat or desiccation issues.

Controlled subsurface drainage from sensitive areas to vegetated drainage ditches makes possible a better balance between water drainage and water retention needs. The initial investment allows a community to draw down local water tables when and where necessary without exacerbating drought problems at other times. [3]

Water diversion ditches

Particularly in Colorado, the term ditch is also applied to open aqueducts that traverse hillsides as part of transbasin diversion projects.

Examples include the Grand Ditch over La Poudre Pass, the Berthoud Pass Ditch, and the Boreas Pass Ditch.

Herbicides

Herbicides may be used to maintain a ditch. Primarily this is done to deny refuge to weeds that would progress into the adjacent field, but may instead involve only broadleaf herbicides specifically to produce forage and/or hay (see §For forage and hay below). [4] [5] [6]

For forage and hay

Ditches can provide forage or be harvested for hay. If herbicides are used, however, the resulting manure cannot necessarily be used in crop fields, because in some cases herbicides will pass through and produce crop injury. [4]

See also

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Levee</span> Ridge or wall to hold back water

A levee, dike, dyke, embankment, floodbank, or stop bank is a structure that is usually earthen and that often runs parallel to the course of a river in its floodplain or along low-lying coastlines.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Drainage</span> Removal of water from an area

Drainage is the natural or artificial removal of a surface's water and sub-surface water from an area with excess of water. The internal drainage of most agricultural soils is good enough to prevent severe waterlogging, but many soils need artificial drainage to improve production or to manage water supplies.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Stormwater</span> Water that originates during precipitation events and snow/ice melt

Stormwater, also written 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 land surface in ponds and puddles, evaporate back into the atmosphere, or contribute to surface runoff. Most runoff is conveyed directly as surface water to nearby streams, rivers or other large water bodies without treatment.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Weed control</span> Botanical component of pest control for plants

Weed control is a type of pest control, which attempts to stop or reduce growth of weeds, especially noxious weeds, with the aim of reducing their competition with desired flora and fauna including domesticated plants and livestock, and in natural settings preventing non native species competing with native species.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">French drain</span> Sub-surface drainage system

A French drain is a trench filled with gravel or rock, or both, with or without a perforated pipe that redirects surface water and groundwater away from an area. The perforated pipe is called a weeping tile. When the pipe is draining, it "weeps", or exudes liquids. It was named during a time period when drainpipes were made from terracotta tiles.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">South Forty-Foot Drain</span> Drainage canal in eastern England

The South Forty-Foot Drain, also known as the Black Sluice Navigation, is the main channel for the land-drainage of the Black Sluice Level in the Lincolnshire Fens. It lies in eastern England between Guthram Gowt and the Black Sluice pumping station on The Haven, at Boston. The Drain has its origins in the 1630s, when the first scheme to make the Fen land available for agriculture was carried out by the Earl of Lindsey, and has been steadily improved since then. Water drained from the land entered The Haven by gravity at certain states of the tide until 1946, when the Black Sluice pumping station was commissioned.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Car Dyke</span> Ditch in the Fens in eastern England

The Car Dyke was, and to a large extent still is, an 85-mile (137 km) long ditch which runs along the western edge of the Fens in eastern England. It is generally accepted as being of Roman age and, for many centuries, to have been taken as marking the western edge of the Fens. There, the consensus begins to break down.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Balancing lake</span> Element of flood management system

A balancing lake is a term used in the U.K. describing an element of an urban drainage system used to control flooding by temporarily storing flood waters. The term balancing pond is also used, though typically for smaller storage facilities for streams and brooks.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Soak dike</span>

The term Soak dike is used in The Fens of eastern England to mean a ditch or drain running parallel with an embankment, for the purpose of taking any water that soaks through from the river or drain beyond the bank. In Lincolnshire, sock dyke was formerly a frequently found form of the expression.

Tile drainage is a form of agricultural drainage system that removes excess sub-surface water from fields to allow sufficient air space within the soil, proper cultivation, and access by heavy machinery to tend and harvest crops. While surface water can be drained by pumping, open ditches, or both, tile drainage is often the most effective means of draining subsurface water.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Nonpoint source pollution</span> Pollution resulting from multiple sources

Nonpoint source (NPS) pollution refers to diffuse contamination of water or air that does not originate from a single discrete source. This type of pollution is often the cumulative effect of small amounts of contaminants gathered from a large area. It is in contrast to point source pollution which results from a single source. Nonpoint source pollution generally results from land runoff, precipitation, atmospheric deposition, drainage, seepage, or hydrological modification where tracing pollution back to a single source is difficult. Nonpoint source water pollution affects a water body from sources such as polluted runoff from agricultural areas draining into a river, or wind-borne debris blowing out to sea. Nonpoint source air pollution affects air quality, from sources such as smokestacks or car tailpipes. Although these pollutants have originated from a point source, the long-range transport ability and multiple sources of the pollutant make it a nonpoint source of pollution; if the discharges were to occur to a body of water or into the atmosphere at a single location, the pollution would be single-point.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Surface runoff</span> Flow of excess rainwater not infiltrating in the ground over its surface

Surface runoff is the unconfined flow of water over the ground surface, in contrast to channel runoff. It occurs when excess rainwater, stormwater, meltwater, or other sources, can no longer sufficiently rapidly infiltrate in the soil. This can occur when the soil is saturated by water to its full capacity, and the rain arrives more quickly than the soil can absorb it. Surface runoff often occurs because impervious areas do not allow water to soak into the ground. Furthermore, runoff can occur either through natural or man-made processes. Surface runoff is a major component of the water cycle. It is the primary agent of soil erosion by water. The land area producing runoff that drains to a common point is called a drainage basin.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Groundwater recharge</span> Groundwater that recharges an aquifer

Groundwater recharge or deep drainage or deep percolation is a hydrologic process, where water moves downward from surface water to groundwater. Recharge is the primary method through which water enters an aquifer. This process usually occurs in the vadose zone below plant roots and is often expressed as a flux to the water table surface. Groundwater recharge also encompasses water moving away from the water table farther into the saturated zone. Recharge occurs both naturally and through anthropogenic processes, where rainwater and or reclaimed water is routed to the subsurface.

In geotechnical engineering, watertable control is the practice of controlling the height of the water table by drainage. Its main applications are in agricultural land and in cities to manage the extensive underground infrastructure that includes the foundations of large buildings, underground transit systems, and extensive utilities.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Percolation trench</span>

A percolation trench, also called an infiltration trench, is a type of best management practice (BMP) that is used to manage stormwater runoff, prevent flooding and downstream erosion, and improve water quality in an adjacent river, stream, lake or bay. It is a shallow excavated trench filled with gravel or crushed stone that is designed to infiltrate stormwater though permeable soils into the groundwater aquifer.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Surface irrigation</span>

Surface irrigation is where water is applied and distributed over the soil surface by gravity. It is by far the most common form of irrigation throughout the world and has been practiced in many areas virtually unchanged for thousands of years.

An agricultural drainage system is a system by which water is drained on or in the soil to enhance agricultural production of crops. It may involve any combination of stormwater control, erosion control, and watertable control.

Krishi Vigyan Kendra Kannur is a front-line agricultural extension center and one of the 700 KVKs financed by the Indian Council of Agricultural Research (ICAR). It opened on 30 March 2004 on the premises of Pepper Research Station, Panniyur under Kerala Agricultural University. KVK primarily works to influence the other extension systems of the district, caters to the training needs of the farmers and extension functionaries, and facilitates the spread of technologies tailored to the diverse environment of farmers.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Witham Navigable Drains</span> United Kingdom legislation

The Witham Navigable Drains are located in Lincolnshire, England, and are part of a much larger drainage system managed by the Witham Fourth District Internal Drainage Board. The Witham Fourth District comprises the East Fen and West Fen, to the north of Boston, which together cover an area of 97 square miles (250 km2). In total there are over 438 miles (705 km) of drainage ditches, of which under 60 miles (97 km) are navigable. Navigation is normally only possible in the summer months, as the drains are maintained at a lower level in winter, and are subject to sudden changes in level as a result of their primary drainage function, which can leave boats stranded. Access to the drains is from the River Witham at Anton's Gowt Lock.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">River Foulness</span> River in the East Riding of Yorkshire, England

The River Foulness is a river in the East Riding of Yorkshire, England. Its name is derived from Old English fūle[n] ēa, meaning “dirty water”. Maintenance responsibilities for the river transferred from the Environment Agency to the Market Weighton Drainage Board on 1 October 2011. Market Weighton Drainage Board subsequently amalgamated with the Lower Ouse Internal Drainage Board on 1 April 2012 to create the Ouse and Humber Drainage Board. The river discharges into the Humber Estuary via Market Weighton Canal. Water levels within the river, its tributaries and the canal are managed and controlled by the Environment Agency. The river lies in an area known as the Humberhead Levels.

References

  1. See also hypoxia, dead zone, nonpoint source pollution, desertification, and urban heat island
  2. Geomorphic Characteristics of Drainage Ditches in Southern Minnesota, and the concept of a Two-Stage Ditch Design (Brad Hansen, Bruce Wilson, Joe Magner, and John Nieber) "Archived copy" (PDF). Archived from the original (PDF) on 2007-08-01. Retrieved 2007-10-14.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: archived copy as title (link)
  3. Drainage Water Management Updates (G. Sands) http://d-outlet.coafes.umn.edu/presentations/DrainForum06/G.%20Sands-WTM%20Updates.pdf%5B%5D
  4. 1 2 "Managing herbicides in ditch forages". University of Minnesota Extension. Retrieved 2021-06-06.
  5. "Ditch Bank Weed Control". University of Arizona . Oct 18, 2017. Retrieved 2021-06-06.
  6. "Emergent Weeds along Drainage Ditches". Pacific Northwest Pest Management Handbooks. 2015-11-23. Retrieved 2021-06-06.