Grade (slope)

Grade (slope)

A grade or slope refers to the incline or decline of a surface, typically in transportation, civil engineering, and physical geography. It is expressed as a percentage that indicates the vertical change in height for every horizontal length covered.

Definition

The grade of a physical feature, road, railway line, or landscaping is the tangent of the angle of that surface to the horizontal. It is a special case of the gradient in calculus where zero indicates uphill and infinity indicates being vertical. The grade can also be described as the ratio of the rise to the run, where rise is the change in elevation, and run is the horizontal distance.

Calculation

The grade of a slope can be calculated using the formula:

Grade (%) = (Rise/Run) * 100

Where:

• Rise is the vertical distance the slope covers
• Run is the horizontal distance the slope covers

Applications

Grades or slopes are used in various fields such as civil engineering, transportation engineering, and physical geography. In civil and transportation engineering, grades are used to plan roads and railway tracks to ensure they are safe and efficient. In physical geography, grades help in understanding the shape and characteristics of the land.

See also

• Gradient
• Incline
• Decline
• Civil Engineering
• Transportation Engineering
• Physical Geography