Whereas conventional, compacted clay barriers are designed to prevent the infiltration of water into the waste below the cover, evapotranspiration takes a decidedly different approach. The cover technique actually uses to its advantage the high water storage capacity of fine grained soils to retain water in the soil above the waste and refuse. The water is "stored" in that layer until it is released back into the atmosphere either through evaporation from the soil or transpiration from the native vegetation that is planted on the surface (EPA 2). One of the only limitations of the evapotranspiration cover is its inability to function adequately outside of arid and semi-arid environments. Only there can the refuse be covered in a reasonable amount of soil with a storage capacity great enough to manage and store the water that will enter the soil at the landfill site. In humid climates, or ones with higher...
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