Grading (earthworks)

Grading in civil engineering and landscape architectural construction is the work of ensuring a level base, or one with a specified slope,[1] for a construction work such as a foundation, the base course for a road or a railway, or landscape and garden improvements, or surface drainage.

The earthworks created for such a purpose are often called the sub-grade or finished contouring (see diagram).

[4]) Levelling can have the consequence of making other nearby slopes steeper, and potentially unstable or prone to erosion.

[5] After the existing conditions of the limit of work has been surveyed, surveyors will set stakes in places that are to be regraded.

[6] The regrading work is then often done using heavy machinery like bulldozers and excavators to roughly prepare an area, then a grader is used for a finer finish.