Soil bioengineering in northeastern Brazil: An Overview

Abstract

This article presents an overview of the application of soil bioengineering techniques, also modeled as natural engineering, in the state of Sergipe, northeastern Brazil, showing the importance of integrating living and inert elements to protect river banks from erosion. The employed techniques are different, ranging from the characterization of susceptibility to erosion to the use of biotechniques, considering knowledge in the areas of agronomic engineering, forestry engineering, civil engineering, biology, pedology, geology, geomorphology and geotechnics. It is an approach that uses techniques and methodologies in a multidisciplinary way, seeking to maximize synergies (for example, natural engineering techniques to combine inert materials in ways that help plants to develop increasingly efficient systems). This approach also considers maintenance-cost optimization in the conduction of the works, using different materials, differing from traditional engineering, which uses predominantly inert materials. The research work carried out in different locations sought the availability of local materials such as rocks, geotextiles made from fibers from the native flora or even available on the market, in addition to the use of native species to recovery of the banks or slopes, according to the ecological conditions of the northeastern Brazil. Size and technological and ecological reach were also considered, in addition to different biotechnical aesthetic objectives adapted to different situations.

Selecting Native Species for Soil and Water Bioengineering Techniques: Alternative to Restore Areas in Brumadinho, MG, Brazil

“…Considering that SWBE has only been implemented in a broader context in the last decade in Brazil (Durlo and Sutili, 2014;Maxwald et al, 2020), there is still little knowledge about the vegetative propagation capacity by cuttings of native species (Vieira et al, 2013;Stuepp et al, 2018) and their potential for use in SWBE works. In addition, the few existing studies are concentrated in some regions of the country, such as the South (Sutili et al, 2012(Sutili et al, , 2018Kettenhuber et al, 2017Kettenhuber et al, , 2019Dewes et al, 2019;Maffra et al, 2021) and Northeast (Holanda et al, 2012(Holanda et al, , 2021Santana et al, 2012;Araújo-Filho et al, 2013;Rocha et al, 2021). According to Sutili and Gavassoni (2017), the lack of information about local species is often an obstacle to SWBE application in Brazil, and in many cases leads to the use of exotic species or nonvegetative interventions such as geotextile or even concrete.…”

Resistance of the fiber-derived geotextile from Typha domingensis submitted to field degradation

“…Features of topography, geomorphology, vegetation, and anthropic activities are factors that interfere on the stability of slopes and is associated to erosion processes 2 . Mitigating measures to control erosion on slopes use different techniques, such as soil bioengineering 3 , 4 . Soil bioengineering brings together materials and techniques from the field of biology and civil engineering based on the use of inert materials such as steel, wood, rock, and concrete, as well as biological materials such as live cuttings and seedlings of plant species, and also geotextiles 5 , 6 .…”