Abstract
Bioengineering is a technical option which uses selected biological elements to retain soil and rehabilitate areas with gullies. With this aim, bioengineering practices were implemented to recover areas affected by gully erosion in a micro-watershed located in the Mixteca, an important region in the Mexican state of Oaxaca. The restoration plan was to rehabilitate an old stone check dam located in the lower part of the watershed and the establishment of live barriers with Erytrina americana Miller, upstream in the main gullies contributing to the drainage system. To assess the morphometry of the micro-watershed, a digital elevation model was generated by a drone. To assess the efficiency of rehabilitation practices, the volume of sediments retained by the structures was quantified by topographic surveys. Results show that the live barriers combined with the check dam retained as sediments weight 1,304.99 Mg. As the micro-watershed area is 37.06 hectares, without bioengineering structures, the specific degradation would have reached 35.27 Mg ha−1y−1. Thus, sediments retention obtained with the bioengineering system has proven to be efficient in decreasing waterflow speed and initiating the rehabilitation of gullied lands.
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