Abstract
Reconciling erosion control and flood prevention with restoration of diversity is an important challenge for our societies today. However, examples of applications remain rare because practitioners and engineers are searching for more integrated solutions for this kind of situation. New considerations should, therefore, refocus attention on developing innovative actions by raising the question of how best to accommodate the two components. Moreover, little attention has been paid to erosion processes and their control for decreasing floods, although this can largely contribute to this purpose. Merging security with ecology, turning to co-benefits nature-based solutions at the catchment scale, based on the use of local ecological engineering, especially soil and water bioengineering combined with civil engineering, can provide adapted practices for harmonizing flood prevention and erosion control with restoration of biodiversity at the water catchment scale. This kind of approach should be accompanied by proposals for coherent and adapted governance for application of co-benefits nature-based solutions at the catchment and territory scales.
Highlights
Introduction onConcepts su132011150Facing increasingly pronounced degradation of the environment and its biodiversity in today’s society, a common concern more than ever remains the conservation or restoration of its quality
Among the existing EE techniques, we find soil and water bioengineering (SWB), which involves practices covering all the techniques using living organisms, animal as well as plant organisms, and more globally natural means and processes, to preserve, restore, or manage ecosystems so as to respond effectively to a variety of ecological, economic, and social objectives, among which: (i) natural hazard control, such as soil erosion, torrential floods, and landslides [16], and (ii) ecological restoration, rehabilitation, or re-introduction of species on degraded lands, river embankments, and other disturbed environments [17] (Figure 1)
Scale to overflow; Reconciling erosion controland andbioengineering flood prevention with restoration of biodiversity reCombine civil engineering on the banks, sometimes using wooden mains difficult because solutions have to be considered at the water catchment scale, with structures, taking care that the large root systems of ligneous upstream downstream (physical, ecological, social, and species dotonot destabilizeinteractions any nearby protection structures (e.g.,political), a dike at thewith topinof a riverbank); Vegetate the riverbanks to limit the speed of the current, protect the banks against erosion, and create a greenway; Vegetate basin slopes to5reduce and slow runoff, while controlling erosion and protecting slopes; In particular, the last four types of actions are dealing with erosion processes and allow better control of floods
Summary
Facing increasingly pronounced degradation of the environment and its biodiversity in today’s society, a common concern more than ever remains the conservation or restoration of its quality. Building dynamic plant barriers to retain fine sediments, with results obtained from the first year and in a sustainable way, allows to derive multiple benefits: plant diversity is restored on eroded slopes, fish can lay eggs on worldwide experiments and references, andand allied recentnumerous, scientific innovations in again in the river bed, aquatic lands are cleaner fishwith are more hydroelectric this domain, the following types of action proposed (Figure dams are working better, and some floods can are be being mitigated [19].3):. Reroute the meanders of the river and/or let it flow freely to dissipate its energy; Develop floodplain notably riparian wetland areas to allow the river
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