Watch: Limerick students to create DIY flood defence manual

Senior Lecturer in the University of Limerick, Declan Phillips, has been working with civil engineering students for eight years to execute engineering designs for simple earthen embankments.

The river Shannon flows through the site, and when it floods and it can wreak havoc on campus. These embankments are designed to protect buildings on the campus against flooding.

"This is essentially an academic exercise, but it does involve excavation of exploratory trial pits, logging of the soil stratigraphy and water table level, field and laboratory testing of soils, and engineering analysis and design of an appropriate embankment based on the soils encountered on site," said Phillips.

Normally Phillips incorporates the building of earthen embankments, or 'berms', as a practical element to his lectures. But this year he will change his teaching methods and ask the students to prepare videos and booklets that would explain to the general public how to build these embankments themselves.

"Later this month I will again start this exercise with a new group of students," said Phillips. "I think it would be useful if this year we focused on the needs of the general public," he said.

The project

As explained by Phillips, there will be two aspects to the student's project:

1. The students will prepare an illustrated user friendly booklet containing designs and drawings for small earthen embankments using native soils. The document would include details on the selection of appropriate soils, construction methods, landscaping and the likely water resistance of the structure depending on the soil type. Estimated costings could also be included.

2. The above would be supplemented by a short YouTube video illustrating the technical details and methods and procedures for construction. This would be similar to the one created by a civil engineering student two years ago:

It is hoped that this will give property owers an idea of how they should approach such a project if they wished to protect homes and farmyards from flooding in the future.