Jiangxi Provincial
Highway Society:
A Seminar on Vetiver
Planting Techniques for Roadside Slope Protection
A
Plenary Session of Road Technique Committee under the Jiangxi Provincial
Highway Society together with a Seminar on Vetiver Planting Techniques for
Roadside Slope Protection were held at Fuzhou city, Jiangxi Province at the
same time from 22 to 23 July, 2004. These two meetings were jointly held by the
Road Technique Committee under the Jiangxi Provincial Highway Society, and the
Highway Technology Department under the Jiangxi Provincial Center for S&T
Consultant and Service. 48 persons, including heads of Highway Bureaus,
Transportation Bureaus, Highway Project Administrations, and Highway Design
Institutions from 9 Cities as well as commissars concerned, attended the
meetings. Programs of the meetings were quite compact and tense. On 22 evening,
arrangements for roadside slope protection with vetiver techniques and road
construction in the year of 2004 were discussed at the plenary session of Road
Technique Committee.
On
23, a Seminar on Vetiver Planting Techniques for Roadside Slope Protection
was held. Chairman of the seminar was Senior
Engineer FU Hengsheng, who is the Acting Director, Vice Chief- secretary,
Jiangxi Provincial Highway Society, and Director of the Road Technology
Department under the Society. 5 major papers, namely, The Present Statue,
Effects and Keys to the Technique of Roadside Slope Protection with Vetiver;
Slope Protection with Contour Vetiver Hedges in Highway Projects; Some
Experiences on Vetiver Planting at Roadsides along Dongxiang-Linchuan Grade One
Highway; Preliminary Study on Bio-engineering Designs for Roadside Slope
Protection Projects; and Off-season Practice and Applications of Vetiver Hedge
Technology for Slope Protection were given respectively by 5 key speakers,
including Professor LU Shengluan from Jiangxi Provincial Institute of Red
Soils. These key speaks were followed by lots of comments and warm discussions
Arranged
by organizers, meeting attendants, ignoring the high temperature, visited the
sites along Dongxiang-Linchuan Grade One Highway for roadside slope protection
projects with vetiver grasses planted in early April 2004. Visitors were quite
exciting when they saw the only 100-day old green vetiver grew very well and
the vetiver hedgerows had been established. They found that the newly formed
vetiver hedges began to effectively protect the roadside slopes when roads were
attacked by several strong rainstorms. By contrast, they found Bahio Grasses
planted just side by side with vetiver planting sites and covered by earthwork
cloth (geojute?) were almost
totally dead and hardly to survive during the hot Summer. Moreover, they found
lots of some small gullies formed due to erosion at sites without vetiver
planting. Consequently, visitors commented that �It is a really fantastic idea
to plant vetiver grasses�.
Mr. XI
Fangbai, Deputy Director, the Transportation Department of Jiangxi Provincial
Government and the Director, Jiangxi Provincial Highway Society, attended the
two meetings. In his 2 speaks on the meetings. He pointed out that techniques
for slope protection with vetiver system are quite sophiscated, low cost, easy
applicable and highly effective. He asked all cities and counties to adopt,
apply, and extend these techniques according to their own conditions, and try
to transfer these techniques into real productive forces. Mr. YU Xuefeng,
Director, Division of Science, Technology, and Education under the
Transportation Department, and Mr.LU Qiaojin, Deputy Head, Jiangxi Provincial
Highway Bureau, asked all organs and areas concerned should contribute jointly
to the quicken promotion for vetiver techniques application so as to make these
techniques useful in the Province�s construction of ecological highways.
Early
in March 2003,Jiangxi Provincial Society issued a document titled �A Notice on
the Extension and the Application of Bio-engineering Vetiver Techniques�(JHS
9-2003). The document wrote that �For rising the contribution rate of science and
technology to Jiangxi Province�s economy growth, and as the first step for transferring
S & T achievements into real productive forces, the Society decides to
recommend and extend the bio-engineering
vetiver techniques. The aim of the application of these techniques is to fix
soils, stabilize slopes, save funds and protect environment in an ecological
way. We should begin a wide propaganda movement so as to promote and extend the
bio-engineering contour vetiver hedge techniques according local conditions.� 5
detailed guidelines were also included in the document. Besides, another
document entitled �An Introduction to the Bio-engineering Vetiver Techniques�
wrote by New Highway S & T Achievements Extension Station was also attached
in the document above mentioned and forwarded to readers.
At the same time, a document also entitled �A Notice
on the Extension and the Application of Bio-engineering Vetiver Techniques�(JTSTE
2-2003)�issued by the Transportation Department of the Provincial Government
pointed out that � The key S & T project A Study on Highway Roadside Slope
Protection with New Vetiver Hedge Techniques supported by the Transportation
Department has achieved countrywide advanced results and received already a
Grade 3 Award issued by China Highway Society. These results have been applied
in some departments in highway sectors in our Province and have turned out
fairly high economic and social efficiencies. In 2003,these results were listed
in �A Collection of Excellent S & T Achievements in Transportation
Industries in the Period 2000-2002�published by China Transportation Ministry
and recommended to be extended. At the present time, New Highway S & T
Achievements Extension Station under Jiangxi Provincial Society is extending
the application of bio- engineering vetiver techniques, We hope departments
concerned should strongly support this extension work if condition adequate.�
These two documents
have quicken the pace of the extension of vetiver techniques in highway
roadside slope protection. According to a rough statistic, so far the area of
highway roadside slope protected by vetiver bioengineering techniques amounts
1.5 million m2. The task of these two meetings is to check the real
results turned out by the two documents above mentioned, and to exchange
experiences and practices in the past year. We believe that these two meetings
will greatly promote the further extension of vetiver contour hedge techniques
for highway roadside slope protection, and a new hot wave of this extension
will be going on.
(LU Shengluan, translated by XIONG Guoyan)