Sport pitches have to meet high requirements and are highly maintained. To reduce the costs, vertically incorporated biodegradable nonwoven should raise water from the drainage layer to the root zone. To incorporate the nonwoven in existing sport pitches, a device was developed. In the present study, the variation of the roughness after the incorporation of the nonwoven was evaluated. Different measurement methods for the roughness of sport pitches were evaluated. A low roughness is important

more »

... r the players to avoid injuries to the athletes. A point laser, an ultrasonic sensor and a feeler wheel were tested for their suitability for measuring the surface roughness of turf sport pitches. The sensors were fixed to a measurement frame and pulled over the test plots before and after the incorporation. The feeler wheel showed the lowest standard deviation and a significant difference after incorporating the nonwoven. These results indicate that the feeler wheel is best suited to determine the effects of the incorporation device in relation to the surface. Comparing the results of the feeler wheel indicates that the developed device increases the roughness of the surface, but the effects are minor.