REPORT: Performance evaluations of erosion and sediment control bmps using independent full-scale simulations

Sediment is the number one pollutant of US water resources even though erosion and sediment control best management practices (BMPs) are now commonly used. While a large amount of information on types of BMPs exist, quantitative information on performance effectiveness is difficult to find and not well documented. In order to help protect water quality from the effects of fugitive sediments, regulatory agencies and site designers are increasingly responsible for determining how well specific BMPs will perform, quantitatively, relative to alternatives.

To this end, the National Transportation Product Evaluation Program (NTPEP) was developed to provide quality and responsive engineering to the testing and evaluation of products, materials, and/or devices that are commonly used by the AASHTO Member Departments of Transportation.
Among the critical objectives of the program is to improve the nation’s transportation system by elevating the quality of available products and encouraging product innovation. NTPEP test reports assist engineers and site designers in approving products based on specification conformance and/or objective performance evaluations. NTPEP test reports contain data collected according to laboratory testing protocols selected through a consensus-based decision by AASHTO’s NTPEP Committee.

There is keen interest in the selected testing protocols being standardized testing procedures, if available. Standardized test methods provide clear protocols so that future testing of BMPs can be easily compared to the results of existing BMPs. Thus, it is desirable that all BMP testing conform to existing ASTM procedures or be clear, easily implemented, modifications of the ASTM procedures.

This article describes the large-scale performance tests incorporated into NTPEP’s program for erosion and sediment control products and reviews results of these tests on a range of erosion and sediment control BMPs. These large-scale tests were performed under the auspices of the National Transportation Product Evaluation Program (NTPEP) and the Georgia Soil and Water Conservation Commission (GSWCC)

Keywords: BMP, erosion control, sediment control,
performance testing