Bioengineering soil using adobe bricks with vegetation for the purpose of small slope stabilization

• Grant number: 12/21402-7
• Support Opportunities: Scholarships in Brazil - Scientific Initiation
• Start date: February 01, 2013
• End date: January 31, 2014
• Field of knowledge: Engineering - Civil Engineering - Geotechnical Engineering
• Principal Investigator: Admilson Írio Ribeiro
• Grantee: Nicole Gianfaldoni Riva
• Host Institution: Universidade Estadual Paulista (UNESP). Campus Experimental de Sorocaba. Sorocaba , SP, Brazil

Abstract

Currently, traditional engineering offers several methods to contain mass movements. Among them highlight the use of gabions (box or mattress), blanket, articulated elements, riprap, concrete panel, strip curtains, dikes, and spikes. These structures, in most cases, have high costs besides they are not consonant with the landscape. Thus, soil bioengineering is the use of inert materials combined with vegetation presented as an option to traditional engineering. In this context, soil erosion is influenced mainly by rain, wind, vegetation, land slope, and the depth of groundwater. Besides these factors, human activity can cause negative environmental impacts and increase their occurrence. Therefore, this study aims to develop a new methodology that avoids bioengineering mass movements due to soil erosion, with the use of adobe bricks with vegetation. These bricks have numerous advantages compared with traditional ones since it does not require specialized labor, they have low cost, it does not consume energy in their manufacture, they consume less water, and do not emit gaseous effluents. In this context, the adobe bricks can be considered as a social technology that enables the integration of the community in projects using craft techniques and promoting partnerships. Thus, the use of brick as adobe with vegetation containment structure for small slopes requires further investigation since there is little information to recover small degraded.(AU)