Geosynthetic solutions for river and coastal protection works

Abstract

Riverine floods and coastal erosion are some of the most frequent natural calamities in India that affect millions of people, cause loss of lives, and damage infrastructure and agriculture. Application of geosynthetic products provides a sustainable, eco-friendly, quick & economical solution among all the conventional river and coastal protection works. This paper focuses on geosynthetic solutions to the river and coastal erosion with the help of case studies. To safeguard against the frequent floods, the banks of the river Brahmaputra near Lakhimpur were strengthened while providing geosynthetic anti-erosion measures. A sandfilled geotextile mattress of 0.1m thickness was provided on the river bank slopes of the Brahmaputra River, Assam. Also, this paper reveals the successful application of specially engineered nonwoven geotextile bags with high abrasion resistance, to mitigate the effects of erosion of the banks of Churni River, West Bengal. This solution reinforces the embankment's edge and increases the factor of safety against repeated floods. The third case study discusses the coastal protection work at Kattupalli, Tamilnadu where a 620ms long shoreline was protected against progressive beach erosion. An embankment was formed using 6 numbers of 3.0m theoretical diameter and 20.0m long high-performance geotextile tubes in crosssection and a small geotextile tube was used for scour protection ahead of the structure. The embankment thus formed also provided ways for beach nourishment and land reclamation at the site.