Abstract
Abstract. In the last few years "D. I. A. F." (Department of Agriculture and Forestry Engineering of Florence University), has been testing the effectiveness of soil bioengineering techniques in Central America. The focus of the present study was to find out which native plants were most suited for soil bioengineering purposes, particularly in the realization of riverbank protection in Nicaragua. Furthermore, we have also been aiming at economic efficiency. These techniques are appropriate for sustainable watershed management especially in underdeveloped countries. Concerning the plants to be used we experimented four native species. Gliricidia Sepium, Cordia dentata and Jatropha curcas are suitable for soil bioengineering more than Bursera Simaruba. Economically speaking, the sustainability of such interventions in underdeveloped countries, has been shown by the evaluation of the cost of riverbank protection using vegetated crib-walls in Nicaragua compared to the cost in different contexts.
Highlights
Soil bioengineering has been used frequently in Europe in the last years, especially in the Alps and Mediterranean regions, the widespreading phase of the 1990’s has passed.Because of this experience, some research teams have begun testing the use of soil bioengineering techniques in “underdeveloped countries”.Currently, experiments in Nepal (Florineth, 2004; Ghimire and Karki, 2004; Rauch et al, 2004; Lammeranner et al, 2005), in Brazil (Sutili et al, 2004), and in Nicaragua (Petrone and Preti, 2005; Ferrari et al, 2005; Petrone et al, 2006), are still in course
When the “tiguilote” (Cordia dentata) was extracted it showed well-formed foliar systems and its survival rate was of 62% (31 cuttings out of 50; Table 1 and Fig. 9)
We found excellent survival rates for Gliricidia sepium (33 cuttings out of 38), Cordia dentata (25 out of 31) and Jatropha curcas (34 out of 45)
Summary
Soil bioengineering has been used frequently in Europe in the last years, especially in the Alps and Mediterranean regions, the widespreading phase of the 1990’s has passed.Because of this experience, some research teams have begun testing the use of soil bioengineering techniques in “underdeveloped countries”.Currently, experiments in Nepal (Florineth, 2004; Ghimire and Karki, 2004; Rauch et al, 2004; Lammeranner et al, 2005), in Brazil (Sutili et al, 2004), and in Nicaragua (Petrone and Preti, 2005; Ferrari et al, 2005; Petrone et al, 2006), are still in course. Soil bioengineering has been used frequently in Europe in the last years, especially in the Alps and Mediterranean regions, the widespreading phase of the 1990’s has passed. Because of this experience, some research teams have begun testing the use of soil bioengineering techniques in “underdeveloped countries”. Soil bioengineering is based on two fundamental issues independently from a world wide application. The basic for each application is the suitability of soil bioengineering plants and secondly special techniques are used depending on what is required for civil engineering structures. It is possible to transfer soil bioengineering techniques to “underdeveloped countries” but for the potential local bio-technical plants basic research is essential. Most of the mentioned projects focus primarily on plants to understand the technical and biological properties
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