Culvert design and operation guide (C689F)

A culvert provides the means of allowing infrastructure to cross a watercourse. Culverts are superficially simple structures, but they have the potential to restrict flow (causing flooding), and to adversely affect the aquatic environment.

This guide replaces the Culvert design manual (R168) published by CIRIA in 1997. It adopts a whole-life approach to the design and operation of culverts, with a focus on asset management, reflecting the significant changes that have occurred in the business of asset management over the past 10 to 15 years. The publication also addresses the management of culverts in the context of both the drainage basin in which they sit, and the infrastructure that they form part of.

This is a comprehensive guide covering a wide range of subject matter relevant to the design and operation of culverts, but does not cover the structural design of culverts. It includes information pertinent to the management and design of culverts, and there is inevitably some repetition throughout the guide. This is to reduce the risk of users missing vital guidance by selective reading. However, users are urged to read comprehensively, especially if new to the subject.

This guide has been superseded by C786F Culvert, screen and outfall manual

Click here to download a free supplementary note for this publication on blockage risks

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