New best-prac road and track management DVD
Interested in improving your grader skills, track design and knowledge? Want to save yourself time and dollars? Land managers, transport workers and others who grade roads in the region now have access to a new DVD featuring soil conservation expert, Col Stanton, aimed at preventing soil erosion and restoring natural water flow across country.
Posted 31 May 2016.
WATER YOUR LANDSCAPE, NOT YOUR ROADS!
Water your landscapes not your roads! aims to reduce soil erosion in the region by reinforcing the key grading techniques and principles presented by Col – a respected soil conservation expert with 40 years experience – at a series of popular grader and soil erosion workshops held across the SA Arid Lands region in the past 12 months.
Soil erosion is a naturally occurring process that can be accelerated through changes in land use, vegetation cover and drainage patterns. One of the biggest causes of accelerated soil erosion is human activity, particularly when behind the wheel of a grader or dozer.
Poor track design and maintenance as well as the use of V-drains, windrows and catch drains can interfere with the natural spread of water, robbing soils of extremely valuable water and starving vegetation, leading to a dry landscape.
Filmed during the 2015 workshops, the free DVD walks viewers step by step through best practice grading techniques including: planning new roads, checking over machinery, building and repairing roads, the dos and don’ts of drainage and how to reinstate a natural floodway.
The use of these best practice techniques stabilises soil, improving water capture and stock feed, while also preventing further erosion and reinstating natural water flow across country. This means the landscape gets more out of each rain, making land more profitable and sustainable.
The DVD also features an in-depth case study from Mt Little Station in the Flinders Ranges, showing that sometimes it is better to shutdown and rehabilitate an inappropriately placed and poorly graded road.
In 2007 we had a significant rain event, it was something like 5 inches in 24 hours and we thought we’d have feed for the next 12 months… unfortunately most of it just ran off the property and a lot of it is to do with the fact that the tracks just robbed it all and just took it into the creeks and then she was gone, so that made us realise that we needed to start addressing that problem. Chris Blackmore, Mt Little Station
To get your copy of the Water your landscapes not your roads! DVD or to register your interest in future best practice grader and soil erosion workshops contact Lisa Stevens, Regional Landcare Facilitator on 8648 5300.
SAAL NRM Board, Natural Resources SA Arid Lands, Australian Government
Article originally published in Across the Outback (May 2016)
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