A Biotechnical Engineering manual to stop hydrogeologic instability

Biotechnical Engineering, or soil engineering, is a technique that uses living plants or plant parts to optimize the regime of water courses, to improve slope stability and to mitigate the effects of works or infrastructures in order to reduce instability effects caused by natural or anthropic factors.

In fact some vegetable species develop quickly a root system which can reinforce the soil and generate a natural self-supporting ecosystem. This manual is a collection of theoretical assumptions and practical methods to be used according to morphological, pedologic, vegetative and climatic features of the territory.

It is addressed to all those public bodies dealing with soil protection and hydrogeological risk prevention, that is to say municipalities, land reclamation consortiums and mountain communities.

Ptcp picks out a first list of different interventions in which biotechnical engineering techniques, to be used in all extremely interesting landscape units, can be applied. Included in the list are also interventions such as morphological restoration and environmental site recovery for future mining activities, reopening or enlargement.

In order to assess environmental compatibility the Province prefers to apply these techniques during planning, programming, designing, implementation and test of every intervention.