Housing construction sites erode at hundreds of times farmland rates
Evidence
In rural regions of Pennsylvania and Virginia, the rate of erosion was generally about 200 tons per square mile, Guy soon reported, but the figures for a housing construction site in Maryland went as high as 50,000 tons per square mile. Though he did not make a detailed comparison of erosion rates from different types of construction, Guy also argued that the problem was less severe in developments with “custom-built” houses than in tract-house subdivisions. The methods used to build “mass housing” exposed more land for a longer time, while the longer drainage channels in the typical subdivision increased the amount of sediment carried away by storm runoff. — Adam Rome, The Bulldozer in the Countryside, 820
Categorization
- XREF: Factual anchor for the land-use and environmental-law thread of the polyad; connects to ch61 claims about suburbanization doubling storm runoff. — connects to: The erosion crisis migrated from farmland to suburban construction by 1965 — Adam Rome, The Bulldozer in the Countryside:…, 825; Construction-site sediment can run 40,000 times farmland erosion rates — Adam Rome, The Bulldozer in the Countryside:…, 823; Scalped suburban watersheds erode at roughly fifty times undisturbed rates — Adam Rome, The Bulldozer in the Countryside:…, 898 (+2 more)
- recurring: this claim recurs 2 times within its source
Broader Connections
- Construction-site sediment can run 40,000 times farmland erosion rates
#corroborates(0.95) — Adam Rome, The Bulldozer in the Countryside, 823 - Scalped suburban watersheds erode at roughly fifty times undisturbed rates
#expands(0.75) — Adam Rome, The Bulldozer in the Countryside, 898 - Apparent farm solvency conceals ongoing topsoil loss to erosion
#contradicts(0.72) — Aldo Leopold, A Sand County Almanac, 425 - Soil formation takes centuries, making its loss nearly irreparable
#qualifies(0.70) — Vinson Brown, Reading the Woods, 230