Ditch

Roadside ditches may provide a hazard to motorists and cyclists, whose vehicles may crash into them and get damaged, flipped over, or stuck and cause major injury, especially in poor weather conditions and rural areas.

Improper drainage systems accelerate water contamination, excessively desiccate soils during seasonal drought, and become a financial burden to maintain.

Industrial earth-moving equipment facilitates maintenance of straight drainage trenches, but entrenchment results in increasing environmental and eventually profound economic costs over time.

Encouraging development of a natural stream sinuosity and a multi-terraced channel cross section appear to be key to maintain both peak ditch drainage capacity, and minimum net pollution and nutrient transport.

Subsurface drainage to ditches offers a way to remove excess water from agricultural fields, or vital urban spaces, without the erosion rates and pollution transport that results from direct surface runoff.

However, excess drainage results in recurring drought induced crop yield losses and more severe urban heat island or desiccation issues.