Abstract
The study investigates plant reinforcement to the stability of coarse-grained soil slopes, exploring the relative contribution of mechanical root reinforcement and hydrological effects of plant-induced matric suction. A numerical model is used to capture both mechanical root reinforcement and hydrological effects, including evapotranspiration with different root architectures and root-induced changes in soil water retention curve and hydraulic conductivity. Mechanical reinforcement is effective only in shallow depths, where the most root biomass exists. Hydrological reinforcement is much more significant in deeper depths (>1m), but this effect could vanish due to root-induced increase in hydraulic conductivity.
Highlights
Soil bioengineering using vegetation has been recognised as an environmentally friendly engineering method for slope stabilisation
The aim of this paper is to develop a model that can quantify the mechanical and hydrological effects and their relative contribution on the stability of an unsaturated vegetated coarse-grained soil slope
Where aðwÞ is known as transpiration reduction function, ranging from 0 to 1; GðgÞ is related to root architecture, gðzÞ; and Smax is the maximum sink when transpiration is not suppressed by oxygen and water stresses
Summary
Soil bioengineering using vegetation has been recognised as an environmentally friendly engineering method for slope stabilisation. A well-known effect of roots on slope stability is the mechanical reinforcements by roots in shallow soil. The mechanical root reinforcement has been extensively quantified experimentally and analytically [1,2,3,4] and this effect is usually included in slope stability calculation [5,6,7,8,9]. The contribution of mechanical reinforcement to soil strength depends on the root biomechanical properties and on the amount of roots available in rooted zone. Field studies [10,11] reported that for natural plants, root biomass is mainly concentrated in the top 0.5 m, below which the root number reduces substantially depending on root architecture. Mechanical reinforcement is considered to be especially effective for resisting surface erosion and shallow slope stabilisation
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