Why Estimate Runoff?
The erosion and sedimentation caused by runoff from a construction site can cause serious problems in the surrounding ecosystem. This course addresses several methods used to minimize runoff. You have already started reading in your text about various techniques used to control runoff. But in order to choose the appropriate technique for your construction site, you will need to know how much runoff will be caused by the construction. There is no way to measure the amount of runoff directly since construction has not yet begun, but we can use several techniques to estimate how much water will become runoff before and after construction. In this course, we will focus primarily on the Rational Method which is the simplest method which can be used to calculate runoff. The next lesson will give an overview of the other methods which can be used to calculate runoff. The Rational Method The rest of this lesson will be concerned with the Rational Method, which is the most commonly used method
