What is Bioengineering?
Bioengineering is a timel-tested method of restoring damaged terrestrial and aquatic ecosystems. It emphasizes structures built of live plants, combined with technical fabrics, gravel, soil, wood and rock, as the basic building blocks that establish the restoration process. These techniques create strong living structures that establish a powerfully resilient riverbank which grows even stronger over time, and on its own, continues the healing process that leads to a long-term stable, self-sustaining, plant and animal riverside community that is uniquely fish-friendly.
Live Willow
Live willow is used in bioengineering because it is a pioneering plant which thrives in freshly disturbed riparian environments. It acts as a nursery plant providing food and shelter for many animals and plants. Additionally it creates in-channel stability, traps sediment, and the seeds of longer lived riparian trees. This jumpstarts the natural process of successional development and puts the disturbed area on a new ecological trajectory towards recovery. The flexible stems of willow also work to slow velocities around structures, prevent scour, prevent out flanking, create roughness, and increase complexity.
We design and construct live stabilizing / revegetating structures, such as:
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We have also used many of these and other techniques in the control and reversal of gully erosion, usually road related and often significant sources of fine sediments in rivers and streams.
With bioengineering, living materials bind structures together to prevent failure. Flexible stems trap fine sediments to produce significantly cleaner water while building up riverbanks and terraces to help restore a properly functioning riparian and river system segment.
