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:
Live Willow Siltation Baffles
Live Willow Brush Mattresses
Live Woven Willow Walls
Live Branch Packing
Coir Wrapped Soil with Live Willow Brush Layer Lifts
Live Vegetated Rock Deflectors (groins)
Large Wood and Boulder Structures
Digger Logs, and Instream Logs, (addressing pools, resting and shelter for fish habitat)
Various forms of instream grade control and pool forming structures such as Rock Ramps, Cross Channel Weirs, and Boulder Wing Deflectors.
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.
