At Associated, we are passionate about building better communities. An employee-owned, Canadian company, we have worked with our clients in the public and private sectors for more than 70 years. We offer a full service, integrated team. Our wide range of expertise includes planning, engineering, environmental science and management, landscape architecture, asset management, communications, and facilitation. Our multi-discipline team has local and global experience ranging from studies and assessments to the design of major infrastructure projects.
Soil bioengineering uses live plant materials to provide erosion control, slope and stream bank stabilization, landscape restoration, wildlife habitat, biodiversity support, and carbon sequestration. Soil bioengineering techniques can build resilience into a watershed, while minimizing costs and efforts to control erosion.
The use of plant material to stabilize slopes provides an economical, low maintenance, and aesthetically pleasing method of stabilizing slopes, while promoting successional reclamation of disturbed sites. Bioengineering also leverages the process of transpiration to move water out of wet / waterlogged soils and into the atmosphere, mitigating the risk of slope movement due to high soil moisture.
The key to bioengineering is the use of woody vegetation (trees and shrubs) for stormwater and erosion control. Woody vegetation presents many benefits including:
Soil Bioengineering - Natural Engineering for Erosion Control
Bioengineering is a cost effective means to build ecological resiliency after 2016 wildfires in Fort McMurray
Bioengineering in the Birchwood Trails