International Journal of Environmental Science and Development

Abstract—Normally, the subsurface drain is benefit in agricultural area to lower the water table resulting in the increase of the plant productivity. To drain water in some particular areas such as a golf course or rather flat area, the subsurface drain can also be applied. A minor change in the subsurface drain which permeable material in the envelope be replaced by an adsorbent was suggested. This new type of subsurface drain will be served as a sustainable practice to simultaneously discharge surface runoff, reduce the runoff to the drainage system, remove any contaminant from the surface runoff and finally replenish the groundwater. However, clogging is highly possible to occur due to the size of the adsorbent. In this work, the effect of the turbidity to the hydraulic conductivity of two adsorbents; granular activated carbon and a composite material of sand and anthracite was investigated. The source of input water was from a drainage canal in order to have similar turbidity of the surface runoff. Results showed that steady state hydraulic conductivities of both adsorbents were still within the range of typical permeable materials in envelope in this case was gravel. However, it was recommended that granular activated carbon should be selected as a substitute because its steady state hydraulic conductivity was higher than that of a composite material of sand/anthracite and for the practicality during the construction.

Index Terms—Shallow aquifer recharge (SAR), subsurface drain, clogging.

The authors are with Department of Civil Engineering, Thammasat University, Thailand (e-mail: ssunisa@engr.tu.ac.th, sasiphorn_sasi@hotmail.com, Firer_pat@hotmail.com).

[PDF]

Cite: Sunisa Smittakorn, Sasiphorn Sasinawaworakul, and Phattara Chutsikarinton, "Effect of Turbidity to the Clogging of the Subsurface Drain," International Journal of Environmental Science and Development vol. 8, no. 5, pp. 355-358, 2017.