Don’t take Geology for Granite

27 Jul Don’t take Geology for Granite

Over the last few weeks, we have categorized and cataloged many trails and roads that are considered valuable assets for Coronado National Memorial for the Unstable Slope Management Program (USMP).  The project conducted by me and supervisor was not an easy task and took us to go through about 15 miles of roads and trails in the park to record and enter in the USMP database.  From all these forms that we filled out, the database shows a map where they are all located as well as their rating.  Every single slope has a rating of Good, Fair and Poor depending on their given score. The website functionality allows for all slopes to be entered to display landslides/rockfalls and color marking for the rated score.

This is a great tool since it helps the park have better management performance measures for slopes and reaction time improvement. Overall this allows the park service and many other agencies to have a better funding process in case of asset damage or asset renovation. Out of all the assets we rated around the park, rockfalls mostly rated as “Fair”, whilst most of all the landslides rated as “Poor” due to their ability to destroy a road or trail in a single event.

The data that we gathered can be accessed all through the USMP website as well as the application for phones and is available for all agencies to search, report, and export any new information needed. The database also allows for a maintenance form to be input which allows for improvements tracks, money spent, and maintenance location. As you can see, this is valuable tool for the all federal agencies in the need to monitor and record changes to their assets that might be affected in the future. There is a lot more to the USMP program that which I will be explaining during our workshop in Denver, CO.