Soil Reinforcement by River Plants: Progress Results

In natural settings, vegetation has long been empirically understood to provide surficial erosion protection and soil reinforcement. It is becoming more common to design engineered stabilization treatments which rely on vegetation, either alone or in conjunction with other materials. However, experimental research data which quantitatively address the soil reinforcement contribution of plants have been scarce to date. This paper seeks to identify the range of conditions where plants have been shown to be suitable for erosion control designs and to describe some of the common benefits of applying vegetation for stabilization purposes. Research methods and preliminary findings of an on-going investigation into the shear stress resistance contribution of various common riparian plant species are presented.