MINIMISE SEDIMENT ENTERING WATERWAYS WITH CONCRETE MATS

Australian Concrete Mats (ACM) have engineered a flexible, cost-efficient and sustainable long-term solution that helps to reduce the loss of sediment and prevents the transport of sediment to the waterways.

Image one to three: Just installed on a roadside drain at Bangalow NSW, the concrete erosion mats capture sediment and protect the roadside drain from erosion and helped filter the sediment from the waterways as it travels across the textured surface of the concrete mat

Heavy sediment deposits affect waterways as it can fill drains, creeks, lakes, and rivers with the sediment. Sediment loss from the land also affects the water quality for fish habitats and can mean a loss in nutrients that the land may need for vegetation. The loss of topsoil as sediment can also cause flooding, which can carry toxins into water ways.

Showing how a vegetated drain helps capture and filter the sediment from entering the waterway.

How sediment spills affect the environment and waterways

• Directly pollutes creeks, river and harbours by filling them with dirt, soil, sand and mud, leading to poorer water quality, affecting swimming or leisure activities in and around waterways
• Destroys aquatic habitats and smothers native plants and animals that live in the waterways
• Blocks stormwater drains leading to flooding and overflows
• Erodes creek and riverbanks
• Causes health and safety risks such as slippery roads and tripping hazards

Concrete mat is easily installed to protect slopes of a water drainage channel at the community sports fields in Moss Vale, NSW.

The flexible concrete erosion mats are an affordable and durable solution that can be effective in a multitude of scenario’s, including:

• As a hard, stable surface for roadways, carparks, driveways, access roads, and low creek crossings
• As protection and stabilisation for slopes and drainage channels
• To help prevent scouring on drains, dam spillways and overflow channels

The permeable concrete mat controls erosion, sediment is filtered at drains lined with concrete mats at community sports fields in Moss Vale NSW.

The erosion control mat is made from a geogrid material that is embedded into concrete shapes. The textured concrete helps to aerate and slow the flow of water. The space between the shapes allows vegetation to grow through the mat and helps anchor the mat to the soil, while also offering filtration of fine silt particles from entering the waterways. Tested at the UNSW Water Lab in Sydney, the effectiveness of the concrete mats has been proven.

Concrete mats are supplied in rolls, that are easy to handle and quick to install, using equipment many project and land managers already have on their worksites. Pre-rolled with a choice from two types of geotextile underlay options:  a biodegradable nutritional underlay that promotes vegetation growth and a non-woven geotextile underlay that inhibits vegetation growth.

Once put in place, the mats are simply unrolled into position, and they start working right away!

The flexible geogrid easily forms around pipes, drains, inlets outlets, signage and trees. Once laid the mats also offer a hard-armour protection and with a natural vegetated and aesthetic finish, which is often not achievable with other drainage and erosion solutions.

Maintaining the vegetation growth is safe because vehicles can drive over the hard stand surface and it can be mowed over with a tractor slasher or commercial mower. This innovative mat offers permanent stabilisation and protection for embankments, drains and channels, gully’s and anywhere that erosion control is required, or where sediment and flow could present an issue on the landscape and waterways.

Mats are used for slope stabilisation and to prevent scouring on bridge abutments in Ipswich, Queensland

The flexible Australian Concrete Mats are an easy-to-use, efficient alternative and cost-effective solution with ongoing benefits, for land and catchment managers, and to the environment.

To find out more about Australian Concrete Mats, click on the links below.