HC1

To mitigate the landslides using bio-reinforcement with geotextiles on the slopes along the road sides of high altitude areas.

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Inspiration: Our main aim was to help the army troops deployed in high altitude areas to get away with destruction caused by the landslides, this inspired us to come up with an easily adoptive technique to arrest the landslides. The areas with dense vegetative cover are often less affected in the event of landslips and large soil erosion, thus, the vegetative cover by perennial and deep fibrous root system can protect the landslips on the roadsides.

What it does it: Vetiver (Chrysopogon zizanioides) can penetrate more than 6 m below the ground level and it will develop the dense vegetative cover in the surface also. The fibrous root system binds with the soil tightly and improves its shear strength. The dense vegetative cover on the surface will reduce the surface soil erosion which mainly initiate the landslide during the prolonged rainstorm. The 6 m deep roots grows across the slip surface (failure surface), hence it will act as natural reinforcement for sloped soil which is endangered by landslides.

How I built it: Initially placed the geogrids or geo membrane based on the soil condition, then the Vetiver was planted densely.

Challenges I ran into: The initial growth of Vetiver takes 1.5 months, so the sloped soil has to be protected from surface erosion initially. Hence the Vetiver along with the geo membrane or geo grid can be used. This geogrid or geomembrane can prevent the initial soil erosion due to heavy rain.

Accomplishments that I'm proud of: Helping the army troops and hilly regions people and other surrounding of the hilly region.

What I learned : This technique is easily adoptable any where and does not require any larger complex machineries. This is most economical compared to other preventive measures in existence and in inclusion of even more creative ideas despite the same rotatory practices and more skill about vegetation.

What's next for LAND slide Mitigation by Bio-reinforcement technique along with geogrid:

This bio-reinforcement technique is opt solution for the frequently occurring landslides in roadsides due to debris flow and prolonged rainstorm. The dense vegetative cover by Vetiver is proper solution for landslide mitigation because of its fibrous root system with deeper depth, tolerance to all type of climate and soil condition, it has good cold tolerance, and also it is a perennial grass, can survive several years. This does not required any special maintenance. The soil erosion by rainstorm will initiate the sliding of slope, but in this adoptable method, the surface erosion can be protected which may avoid the soil collapse caused by rainstorm.

The vegetative area has to be increased in many landslide hotspots of high altitude area, the specialized equipment has to be designed and fabricated as planned for conducting field shear tests, to ensure the stability improvement of field slopes which endangered by landslides.

Built With

  • fieldsheartests
  • finiteelementprogram
  • geogrids
  • jeterosiontests
  • shearstrength
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