Soil stabilization with lime for erosion control in solar plants

Abstract

The installation of solar parks requires extensive areas and results in soil erosion in many cases. One suitable solution is applying lime to improve soil characteristics, such as mechanical strength, stability, workability, durability, and internal and surface erosion resistance. This soil treatment is of particular importance when dealing with hydraulic structures conceived in the solar park drainage systems. The erodibility tests were performed in a solar complex soil in an EFA apparatus constructed to measure the erosion rate of cohesive and non-cohesive soils in different flow rates. The tests were performed with or without 3% lime addition and two compaction conditions. The experiments indicated that the erodibility of lime-treated soils represents between 26% and 12% of the values obtained from untreated soils and under reduced compaction. The values ranged from 16% to 7% for controlled compaction. The results represent a significant reduction in the soil erodibility treated with lime even with reduced compaction, performing an efficient, economical, and sustainable solution for erosion control.