Trail drainage features: Development and testing of an assessment tool

Burroughs, Kaitlin; Leung, Yu-Fai; Moore, Roger; Blank, Gary

Sustainably designed and well-maintained trails are important, because they allow for the protection of adjacent natural and cultural resources by concentrating visitor use on linear paths, and they facilitate visitor enjoyment of these areas. Environmental factors related to water are common and can have negative impacts on trail conditions. Park managers often combat these issues by installing and maintaining trail drainage features (TDFs) as a means of diverting surface runoff from tread surfaces. As such, TDFs are intended to contribute directly to trail sustainability. This report presents the development and testing of a field tool that managers can use to assess and better understand the effectiveness of trail drainage features. For phase one, we created a TDF assessment tool based upon relevant literature and pilot tested it in a North Carolina segment of the Appalachian National Scenic Trail (AT). Phase two involved a reliability test that determined the degree of agreement in measurements between two different trail assessment crews. Results demonstrated that TDF measurement items had moderate to very high agreement ratings, indicating that the assessment tool can provide reliable information about trail drainage features to park managers. The assessment tool provides a compilation of important variables to consider when determining TDF effectiveness.

Trail drainage features: Development and testing of an assessment tool

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