close to the ground that is by providing a bevel the edge of the shovel 10 is made sharper in order to promote dislodging compacted snow or ice from the ground the angle of bevel u03b3 is preferably in the order of 45 degrees in order to correspond to the average angle of the handle 14 with respect to the horizontal during use in another embodiment the first and second ground contacting surfaces are provided with a reinforced edge 32 of metal or plastic to provide a sharper or reinforced edge as shown in fig3 a further still it is preferred that the blade 12 is provided with rounded corners 40 at the leading corner of both the first and second ground contacting surfaces to facilitate the shovel 39 s ability to ride over imperfections in the ground which might otherwise cause the blade 12 to catch on the ground still further it is also preferred that the leading end 20 and trailing end 22 are parallel to the handle 14 to enable the blade to be placed tightly against a vertical surface at the edge of a driveway or walkway in another embodiment the blade is provided with a different or varying radius of curvature between the leading end 20 and trailing end 22 of the blade 10 as shown in fig5 the radius of curvature of either a fixed or variable curvature blade will typically be in the range of.