Landslide stabilization using Soil and Water Bioengineering in linear Infrastructures in Basque country and technical manual

According to the European Federation of Soil and Water Bioengineering ( EFIB ) Soil and Water Bioengineering (SWB) is a specific discipline that combines technology and biology in which native plants and plant communities are used as living building material to solve erosion and conservation problems, contributing to the regeneration of degraded ecosystems due to natural or anthropic causes, toregenerate the dynamics of ecological and geomorphological processes and to the recovery of Biodiversity.

The use of Nature Based Solutions (NBS)  as SWB is becoming more and more widespread in public administrations, for example, looking for specific solutions  for landslide stabilization(SWB )

Due to the orographic, edaphic, and climatological conditions of the Basque Country, landslides occur frequently. In the last decade, several landslide stabilizations projects have been carried out on road slopes using SWB solutions as an alternative to traditional engineering solutions. the Department of Road Infrastructures of the Basque administration  requested a series of technical projects  in which alternatives to traditional engineering solutions are presented using SWB, choosing a series of standard reports. The communication will present several examples realized  in the last fifteen years  in different conditions and the evolution of this work during this period.

The measures taken focused on:

• The restoration of the slope morphology and its natural gradient and vegetation
• The stabilization of landslides by using live structures like living cribwall or living
• Improvement of the drainage of the slope with living drains

More recently , public entities have detected the need to have high quality technical manuals that support them in both the drafting of projects and definition of this type of works. To give answer to this situation, the Provincial Council of Bizkaia has commissioned the companies IDOM and SCIA SL  to form a working group for the definition and development of the technical manual of SWB works applied to the case of linear infrastructures. This manual is including the latest advances in the soil and water bioengineering discipline (description and constructive details of the techniques, root reinforcement models, work design methodologies in the short and long term, deterioration models of the utilized materials, etc.). The full manual will be completed and published throughout 2023.

This paper shows concrete examples realized in the Basque country and the progress and contents developed to date as well as the topics index that will be included throughout this year

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