Bioengineering measures for erosion and sediment control Wilson Ardra*1, Joseph Asha2 1Department of Soil and Water Conservation EngineeringKelappaji College of Agricultural Engineering and TechnologyTavanur, Malappuram679573Kerala, India 2Department of Irrigation and Drainage EngineeringKelappaji College of Agricultural Engineering and TechnologyTavanur, Malappuram679573Kerala, India *Email for correspondence: ardrawilson08@gmail.com
Online Published on 07 May, 2022. Abstract Soil is formed at a rate of only 1 cm every 100 to 400 years and it takes 3,000 to 12,000 years to build enough soil to form productive land which makes soil a non-renewable resource. It is important therefore to treat soil, especially topsoil, as a living entity. Erosion on farm fields reduces potential crop production and sediment which leaves the field can result in subsequent sedimentation problems which in turn can cause off-site environmental problems. In this study an attempt has been made to evaluate the effectiveness of different bioengineering control measures in reducing the soil loss from agricultural fields and the soil loss measured from standard runoff plots was compared with a bare land plot of the same size. The different bioengineering measures adopted in this particular study were coir geotextile, jute geotextile and vegetative cover. Among all the three measures, coir geotextile was found to be the most effective in reducing soil loss due to erosion which reduced soil loss by 99.95 per cent compared to bare land plot of the same size. Top Keywords Soil, Erosion, Bioengineering, Coir geotextile. Top |