Peat harvesting requires draining the peatland. This is done by digging large ditches and allowing the site to drain. What would be the total volume of water (in m 3 ) drained from one ditch in 1 day?
You have the following information:
· The water table (upside down triangle) is maintained at 30 cm below the surface and
follows the surface
· The ditches are 30 m apart (i.e., from centre to drainage ditch is 15 m)
· The edge of the ditches are 10 cm lower than the centre of the field
· The ditch is 100 cm deep and 250 m long
· The hydraulic conductivity of the peat is 5.0x10 -4 cm/s (0.0005 cm/s)
· There is no vertical loss (recharge or evaporation) in the ditch
· The system is underlain by impermeable clay
Dear Isaac,
despite I am not supporting peat mining you may have a look into Prof. Eggelsmann`s research. He assessed in detail hydraulic properties of peat soils and their changes induced by drainage. See following links and literature:
Author(s) : Eggelsman, R.; Book : Subsurface drainage instructions. 1987 pp.336pp.; Abstract : Soil water is discussed in an introductory chapter. Equipment and procedures for field and laboratory investigation are reviewed. Subsurface drainage methods and efficiency are discussed for pipe drainage, mole drainage and deep ploughing. The calculation of water removal, planning of drainage projects, drainage materials and drainage construction are described.
ISBN : 3490023900; Publisher : Verlag Paul Parey; Country of publication : German Federal Republic; Language of text : English
http://hydrologie.org/redbooks/a151/iahs_151_0497.pdf
I guess most relevant factors required to estimate water discharge are porosity (e.g. 80%), conductivity (e.g. 200 cm/day), and distance to draining channel,...
BR
Nils
Nils Borchard Thanks for your response, I guess I can apply Dacy's Law to estimate the volume of discharge in this regard. I will surely take a look at the research of Prof. . Thank you once again.
...you may also consider Hooghoudt`s equation:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drainage_equation
https://www.waterlog.info/lec/equation.pdf
http://edepot.wur.nl/183103
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