Soil bioengineering and the ecological restoration of riverbanks at the Airport Town, Shanghai, China

Abstract

Ecological, soil bioengineering, and traditional techniques were integrated to obtain a structurally sound, ecologically sustainable and socio-economically beneficial method for restoring the riverbanks at the Airport Town, Shanghai, which was the first project applying soil bioengineering to riverbank restoration in China. Soil bioengineering is the use of living plant materials to construct structures that perform some engineering and ecological functions and can provide an effective means for slope stabilization and site restoration of riverbanks. The restoration and management strategy was based on a plan to integrate the natural landscape using live staking, live fascines, brush layer, vegetated geo-grids and geo-gabions, along with native vegetation for riverbank preservation. Ecological parameters including root characteristics and their biomass, species and habitat diversity, and soil moisture and shear stress were measured for site characterization and evaluation of a demonstration project The riverbank erosion was reduced significantly, along with an increase in species and habitat diversity, and improvement in aesthetics and water quality after a ten-month project implementation period, when compared to the control site. Our project of ecological restoration of riverbanks can be viewed through the perspective of the 19 principles presented by Mitsch and Jorgensen, which shows also how the principles and methods of soil bioengineering, and the concepts of ecological engineering that have recently been much developed in the West have been absorbed into Chinese practices of ecological engineering and can be applied to ecological restoration of riverbanks in China.