Grassed Waterway Training Series

General Waterway training

1. Basic Grassed Waterway Videos 1-3 – overview of the 412 practice standard
   • Video 1 Basic Waterway
   • Video 2 Basic Waterway
   • Video 3 Basic Waterway
2. Tech Talk on Waterway Out of Bank flow design
   • Tech Talk: Out of Bank
3. Tech Talk on Tile Design using PS 606/620
   • Tech Talk: Tile Flow Design
4. Tech talk on using the MN NRCS Waterway Design spreadsheet found on eFOTG
   • Tech Talk: Grassed Waterway Spreadsheet
5. Using the EFT Waterway Sizing Wizard
   • Waterway Wizard in EFT
6. Basic EFT Preferences – This video explains how to import preferences, the “why” behind most of the preferences used in EFT in MN and also explains using the MN Configuration. 
   • EFT Preferences
7. Grassed Waterway Project Checklist

EFT – Waterway Design Tool (WDT)

Engineering Field Tools – WDT is an approved tool to design waterways in MN.  It uses Manning’s equation to size both the channel and if desired, support tile.  Following MN PS 412, it checks tractive stress and provides flow data to check capacity based on user inputs of survey data, desired dimensions, and proposed alignments.  For inexperienced staff, a prerequisite to beginning design training would be to first watch the Basic Grassed Waterway videos above.  Then, watch the WDT training videos below in chronological order will provide everything needed to set up EFT and begin a design.

WDT Resources

1. WDT Workflow – Step by step instructions
2. WDT Example Reports – Reports and example documentation from EFT-WDT

Example Project – click to download

The survey and imagery files are the same ones demonstrated in the training videos below.  Feel free to download and practice a waterway design while following the videos.

1. Survey csv
2. 2019 Image
3. Soils Background Image
4. Example Project Folder Documentation

WDT Training Videos (reference WDT Workflow above) 

Contact us with questions.

1. Create customers, projects, and new designs (6:53) – Explains State/Area configuration and steps to create a new customer and start a project.  (More complete explanations of EFT preferences are available in the video linked under General Waterway Training).
   • Setup, Customer, and New Design
2. Import Survey into WDT (4:24)
   • Import Survey for EFT
3. Breaklines defined and adding them to WDT (13:43)
   • Adding Breaklines
4. Bringing in an image (2:22)- creating the GIS file necessary to import a background photo for use in WDT
   • EFT Background Image
5. Create and import a DEM (8:11) – a LiDAR 1m DEM can be used to create a surface in place of doing a survey. 
   • Create and Import DEM for EFT
6. Adding your alignments (2:35)
   • EFT Adding Alignment
7. Adding a profile, running a design, reviewing cross-sections (17:25)
   • WDT Profile Design
8. Adding a lateral waterway (8:20) -
   • WDT Lateral
9. Creating a tile design for WDT (28:23)
   • Tile Design for WDT
10. Create a plan view and print waterway reports (15:17) - document your waterway design including a cover page with plan view
    • Print Waterway Reports