On the Origin of Soil Bioengineering

Soil bioengineering is a discipline dealing with hill slopes, riverbanks, and earth embankment stabilisation, which in recent decades has gained worldwide popularity. Its peculiarity consists in the technical use of vegetation, sometimes coupled with other materials. Owing to aesthetic and environment-friendly characteristics of vegetation, soil bioengineering techniques are frequently adopted to achieve a low environmental impact of protective works within the fields of landscape architecture and environmental restoration. In spite of such success, the origin and the contents of soil bioengineering have not been completely investigated. This paper shows that soil bioengineering is not as old as most of the researchers think; rather, it was developed in a very specific context, the building of highways during the Nazi dictatorship, although it is the result of a longer process. The paper also shows that the contents of soil bioengineering are not related to the mere use of vegetation for stabilising purposes, but they focus on broader environmental concerns.