Water Resources Department, Government of Gujarat, India
Online published on 6 January, 2017.
Sandy soils are predominant in many areas in India. Large infrastructural projects in recent time have consumed large quantity of good soils. When the canals are to be constructed from available sandy soils, stability of the canal embankment and seepage are the main issues. High embankment canals are unsafe because of lack of required cohesion. When the particle size is almost identical, compaction is difficult and hence the mechanical interlocking of particles is not there which cause embankment failure. Lack of cohesion and compaction, both, could cause the issue of stability. Seepage is due to voids which is again because of uniform size of particles and poor compaction. The paper discusses the application of geosynthetics in construction of two branch canals of the Sardar Sarovar Project which have been constructed from sandy soils and underlines how geosynthetics help avoid the issues with that kind of soil.
