Evapotranspiration Covers for Landfills

In Evapotranspiration Covers for Landfills, you'll learn ...

• How evapotranspiration (ET) landfill cover systems differ from conventional cover systems
• Permeability limitations for landfill cover systems
• Differences between a monolithic ET cover and a capillary barrier ET cover
• Considerations involved in the design of ET covers, including climate, soil type/thickness, soil fertility and vegetation types
• Percolation monitoring methods for ET cover systems

Overview

Preview a portion of this course before purchasing it.

Credit: 2 PDH

Length: 21 pages

Final cover systems are frequently used at a variety of different waste disposal sites, including landfills, abandoned dumps, hazardous waste containment facilities, and sites with surface contamination, as well as some hazardous, low-level, and mixed low-level waste sites with conducive environmental conditions. Final covers serve multiple purposes: to control moisture and percolation, manage surface water runoff, minimize erosion, prevent direct exposure to waste, control gas emissions and odors, prevent occurrence of disease vectors and other nuisances, and meet aesthetic and other end-use purposes. Final cover systems are intended to remain in place and maintain their functions for periods of many decades to hundreds of years.

To minimize percolation, conventional cover systems typically use low-conductivity barrier layers. These barrier layers are often constructed of compacted clay, geomembranes, geosynthetic clay liners, or combinations of these materials.

First appearing in the mid-1990’s, evapotranspiration (ET) covers may be a cost-effective alternative to conventional ones. ET covers are designed to rely on the ability of a soil layer to store the precipitation until it is naturally evaporated or is transpired by the vegetative cover. In this respect they differ from more conventional cover designs in that they rely on obtaining an appropriate water storage capacity in the soil rather than an as-built engineered low hydraulic conductivity. ET cover system designs are based on using the hydrological processes (water balance components) at a site, which include the water storage capacity of the soil, precipitation, surface runoff, evapotranspiration, and infiltration.

This course is intended primarily for civil and environmental engineers interested in learning how ET covers can provide a cost-effective alternative to conventional final cover systems found at many waste disposal sites.

Specific Knowledge or Skill Obtained

This course teaches the following specific knowledge and skills:

• Types of ET covers: monolithic and capillary barrier
• Key design considerations: climate, soil type, soil thickness, soil fertility, vegetation, and control layers
• Advantages and limitations
• Measuring performance with monitoring systems and numerical models

Certificate of Completion

You will be able to immediately print a certificate of completion after passing a multiple-choice quiz consisting of 43 questions. PDH credits are not awarded until the course is completed and quiz is passed.