The Relationship between the Incidence of the Pavement/Curb Failure by Street Tree Roots and Soil Conditions of Boring Investigation Data in Urban Area of Kyoto City

Abstract

There is a problem that the roots of street trees lift up and break many pavements and curbs. The purpose of this research is to know the relationship between surrounding conditions and the incidence of the pavement/curb failure by street tree roots in urban area of Kyoto city. We focused on the soil condition as the factors of surrounding conditions and chose trident maple （Acer buergerianum Miq.） as the subject. Site of this research is one of the main streets running north-south in Kyoto city. In this case, we used boring investigation data to know general soil condition around street trees. Through this survey, we could know some possible factors of the trouble. For example, the incidence rate in humus soil is highest, and the extent of root growths are influenced by the firmness of soil and groundwater level around planted space. The disadvantage of this research is each result has fuzzy aspects because we didn’t carry out the soil investigation directly. However, through this research, we found the boring data has some possibilities to complement a lot of soil investigations to know general soil condition around street trees.