Scottish Canals Research Articles

Repurposing Dredged Canal Sediment for Topsoil at Bowling, Scotland

The aim of the SURICATES (Sediment Uses as Resources in Circular And Territorial EconomieS) Project is to increase sediment reuse for erosion and flood protection. To investigate potential opportunities to reuse dredged sediments as topsoil following phyto-conditioning, a pilot scale operation was undertaken at Bowling, Scotland. As part of normal maintenance, 550 m3 of wet sediment was removed from the Forth and Clyde Canal at Old Kilpatrick by Scottish Canals using a hydraulic excavator during September 2020, transported by barge, then transferred to a dewatering cell constructed in an old canal basin by lining with a geotextile break-layer and installing engineered drainage. Following initial dewatering, the sediment was sown with three varieties of grass, which each germinated and survived the winter. By March 2021 composite soil samples already met the BS 3882:2015 criteria for topsoil, other than for Zn levels, which reflected the locally elevated baseline values. This allowed the conditioned sediment to be used immediately as topsoil as part of the nearby construction of a long-distance cycle track following an old railway embankment. Following reuse, replicated validations of six grass or wildflower seed mixtures were sown in April 2021 and monitored to verify longer-term suitability as a landscaping soil.

Mechanical Properties and Microstructure of Low Carbon Binders Manufactured from Calcined Canal Sediments and Ground Granulated Blast Furnace Slag (GGBS)

This research study evaluated the effects of adding Scottish canal sediment after calcination at 750 °C in combination with GGBS on hydration, strength and microstructural properties in ternary cement mixtures in order to reduce their carbon footprint (CO2) and cost. A series of physico-chemical, hydration heat, mechanic performance, mercury porosity and microstructure tests or observations was performed in order to evaluate the fresh and hardened properties. The physical and chemical characterisation of the calcined sediments revealed good pozzolanic properties that could be valorised as a potential co-product in the cement industry. The results obtained for mortars with various percentages of calcined sediment confirmed that this represents a previously unrecognised potential source of high reactivity pozzolanic materials. The evolution of the compressive strength for the different types of mortars based on the partial substitution of cement by slag and calcined sediments showed a linear increase in compressive strength for 90 days. The best compressive strengths and porosity were observed in mortars composed of 50% cement, 40% slag and 10% calcined sediment (CSS10%) after 90 days. In conclusion, the addition of calcined canal sediments as an artificial pozzolanic material could improve strength and save significant amounts of energy or greenhouse gas emissions, while potentially contributing to Scotland’s ambitious 2045 net zero target and reducing greenhouse gas emissions by 2050 in the UK and Europe.

Scotland provides increased public access to its iconic canal infrastructure

Scottish Canals’ first guided tours inside the Falkirk Wheel rotating boat lift axle were sold out earlier this year. Infrastructure director Richard Millar says such experiential visits to iconic infrastructure play a key role in attracting the next generation of civil engineers.

The Kelpies, the Falkirk Wheel, and the tourism‐based regeneration of Scottish Canals

AbstractThis paper examines the transformation of the Scottish Canals network for the purposes of leisure visitation as an element of tourism. It focuses on 2 iconic developments, The Kelpies and the Falkirk Wheel, which are considered in relation to their impact on destination awareness and tourism development in a particular locale. The key attraction sites illustrate successful brownfield regeneration, enduring visitation and the role of canals as multifaceted tourism assets in a specific region of Scotland. In addition, the paper provides a context for the decline and resurgence of canals in lowland Scotland.

Mercury alkylation in freshwater sediments from Scottish canals

Mercury concentrations were investigated in freshwater sediment from two canals in Scotland, UK. High concentrations found in the Union Canal (35.3–1200 mg kg−1) likely originate from historical munitions manufacture, with lower levels in the Forth & Clyde Canal (0.591–9.14 mg kg−1). Concentrations of methylmercury (MeHg) were low – from 6.02 to 18.6 μg kg−1 (0.001–0.023% of total Hg) in the Union Canal and from 3.44 to 14.1 μg kg−1 (0.11–0.58% of total Hg) in the Forth & Clyde Canal – and there was a significant inverse relationship between total Hg concentration and %MeHg. Total Hg concentration was significantly negatively correlated with pH and positively correlated with Fe content (in the Union Canal only) but not with organic matter, S content or the proportion of clay present. The MeHg concentration was not correlated with any of the above sediment parameters. Ethylmercury was detected in the most highly contaminated sediments from the Union Canal.

The Cullochy weir breach and weir reconstruction

The Caledonian Canal breached in flood conditions at Cullochy Weir on 8 March 2015. The result was an uncontrolled release of water from the canal and the adjoining Loch Oich Reservoir. Scottish Canals worked with consultants, contractors and stakeholders to effect a closure of the breach, reopen canal, and then to reconstruct the weir.

Scottish canal reservoirs – a historical perspective. Part 3: Caledonian canal

This paper is based on a presentation made to the Institution of Civil Engineers' Panel for Historic Engineering Works and the British Dam Society in Glasgow on 11 March 2009. Earlier parts of this paper discussed the reservoirs supplying the Lowlands and Crinan canals. This part discusses the unusual reservoirs on the Caledonian canal. Inspecting and Supervising Engineers for all the Scottish canal reservoirs are listed.

Scottish canal reservoirs – a historical perspective. Part 2: Crinan canal

This paper is based on a presentation made to the Institution of Civil Engineers' Panel for Historic Engineering Works and the British Dam Society in Glasgow on 11 March 2009. An earlier part of this paper discussed the reservoirs supplying the canals of the Lowlands (Brown D. H. Scottish canal reservoirs – a historical perspective. Part 1: Lowlands. Dams and Reservoirs, 2009, 19, No. 3, 111–118). This part discusses the Crinan canal and will be followed in a future issue by a short paper on the unusual reservoirs on the Caledonian canal.

Scottish canal reservoirs – a historical perspective. Part 1: Lowlands

This paper is based on a presentation made to the Institution of Civil Engineers' Panel for Historic Engineering Works and the British Dam Society in Glasgow on 11 March 2009. This first part of the paper and covers the canals in the Lowlands. The Highland canal reservoirs will be discussed in later issues of Dams and Reservoirs.

The Spirited Horse, the Engineer, and the Mathematician: Water Waves in Nineteenth-Century Hydrodynamics

Once upon a time, a spirited horse was dragging a boat along a peaceful canal of Northern Scotland. Suddenly, a ferocious dog charged from the bushes. The horse took fright and ran off, drawing the boat after him. To the horse’s surprise, the boat offered almost no resistance at this high speed. A clever naval engineer, who chanced to witness the scene, pursued the matter through numerous experiments and confirmed the horse’s discovery. Not knowing his limits, the engineer ventured to propose a mechanical explanation of this paradox based on the existence of a wonderful, solitary wave that carried the boat with it. A renowned mathematician, who excelled in the learned calculus of water motion, mocked this amateurish attempt. There was nothing in the engineer’s equations to justify his reasoning, and much to condemn it. Yet for a few years Scottish canal travelers enjoyed the commercial exploitation of the paradox. Half a century later, the aged mathematician resumed his calculations. Thanks to his long experience, he now saw new meanings in his old symbols. From this enriched analysis the solitary wave and the possibility of vanishing ship resistance emerged as if by magic. At last, the wise man rejoiced, mathematics could do as well as a galloping horse. This fable is an imaginary simplification of a real story of which the engineer John Scott Russell, and the mathematicians (in a broad sense) George Biddell Airy, George Gabriel Stokes, Joseph Boussinesq, and Lord Kelvin were the main actors (besides the spirited horse). It is intended to indicate a major nineteenth-century transformation of the mathematical physicist’s tool kit through which practically important solutions of longknown equations became much more easily accessible. The main purpose of the present article is to analyze the nature and the water-wave circumstances of this transformation. Waves on the surface of water were an obvious field of application of the new hydrodynamics of Jean le Rond d’Alembert, Leonhard Euler, and Joseph Louis Lagrange. The latter mathematician himself wrote the basic equations of water waves, and solved them in the simplest case of small waves on shallow water. Most of what is today known on water waves was found in the nineteenth century: the celerity of small, plane, monochromatic waves on water of constant depth, the pattern of waves created by a local action on the water surface, the shape of oscillatory or solitary waves of finite size, the effect of friction, wind, and a variable bottom on the size and shape of the waves. There is, however, a puzzling contrast between the conciseness and ease of the modern treatment of these topics, and the long, difficult struggles of nineteenth century physicists

The Early History of Solitons (Solitary Waves)

The early history of solitons or solitary waves began in August1834 when the Victorian Engineer John Scott Russell observed asolitary wave travelling along a Scottish canal. The definitive theorywas not published until 1895 by Korteweg and de Vries, working inAmsterdam. The subject was reborn in Plasma Physics in 1958 with thediscovery, by J. H. Adlam and the author, of solitary waves in acollisionless plasma containing a magnetic field. In 1965 Zabusky andKruskal found, by numerical investigation, that such waves retaintheir identity after colliding. This particle-like behaviour led theseauthors to introduce the term soliton to replace the term solitarywave.

L’effetto dei 4 °C sulla attività riproduttiva e sullo sviluppo di due raize geografiche diAsellus aquaticus (L.) (Crustacea: Isopoda)

We report on the effect of 4 °C on the reproduction and development of two geographical populations ofAsellus aquaticus (L.) raised in our laboratory; one population came from a Scottish canal, the other from the Tevere river (Roma, Italy). Analysis of the results show that in both populations a water temperature of 4 °C causes: 1) a decrease in the number of pairs and of fertilized females; 2) significantly longer times for precopuia and embryonal development; 3) a fatal outcome in all stages of development from the embryonal stage to the penultimate larval stage. Totally unsuccessful reproduction suggests that in neither of the populations have the embryos been exposed to natural selection for resistance to cold. This has already been reported in other northern populations ofAsellus. The Tevere population diverges from the other southern populations studied whose embryos and larvae are resistent to 4°C.

Scottish canals and waterways

Scottish canals and waterways