ARS | Publication request: Erosion Potential of Various Golf Course Bunker Sands

Submitted to: ASA-CSSA-SSSA Annual Meeting Abstracts
Publication Type: Abstract
Publication Acceptance Date: September 4, 2007
Publication Date: November 5, 2007
Citation: Nemitz, J., Bigelow, C., Moeller, A., Hardebeck, G., Walker, K., Smith, D.R. 2007. Erosion Potential of Various Golf Course Bunker Sands. American Society of Agronomy Annual Meeting Abstracts. November 4-8, 2007, New Orleans, LA. 2007 CDROM.

Technical Abstract: Sand bunkers are principal golf course features adding aesthetic beauty and challenge for golfers. Bunkers often require substantial resources for proper maintenance particularly where sand is installed on severe slopes in humid climates subject to occasional heavy rainfall. Numerous sands are commercially available for bunkers, however, very little information exists regarding their performance. A controlled environment study was conducted at the USDA National Soil Erosion research laboratory to determine sand loss from four widely used bunker sands when installed at four slope angles (7.5, 15, 25 and 40 o). Additionally the influence of geotextile fabric underlayments were evaluated at the 40o angle. The sands selected represented a wide range of products; crushed limestone, crushed gravel and two mined materials which varied in angularity, subangular to angular, coefficient of uniformity, 1.82-3.33, gradation index, 2.76-7.78, and angle of repose (AR), 30.3-34.9. Sands were installed into stainless steel trays 20 cm x 1 m x 7.6 cm deep and subjected to a 10.2 cm hr-1 simulated rainfall. For sands installed on the 40o slope, crushed limestone had the least loss, 49.6 g m-2 min-1, while one medium-fine sand had the highest, 2,422 g m-2 min-1. There were few relationships between quantitative sand characteristics and erosion except for AR and sands possessing a higher AR, 33.1 or 34.9, resulted in less erosion. Adding fabric underlayments to the erodable sand at 40o reduced sand loss by a factor of 100, however, significant sand migration into the fabrics following this short simulation was also observed.