Tag: ecological engineering

NEWSLETTER (NL2026-09): Bangladesh Moves Toward National Adoption of Vetiver

Bangladesh Moves Toward National Adoption of Vetiver The most significant vetiver news comes from Bangladesh, where vetiver (locally “binna” grass) has moved from pilot projects to the top of government. On August 6, Prime Minister Tarique Rahman chaired a meeting…

Vetiver System — Guides and Design Standards: Module C Refreshed: Vetiver for Wastewater, Effluent. and Pollution Control

Use Them Now, and Help Us Make Them Standards. TVNI has completed a full review and revision of Module C of the Guides and Standards suite — the module that covers wastewater, effluent and pollution control. The module now runs…

A Poor Man’s Irrigation System – The Remarkable Hydraulics of a Vetiver Hedge

How a closed hedge spreads water, sorts sediment, and hands nitrogen and phosphorus to the crop below — and why a leaky one does the reverse I have described a properly functioning vetiver hedge as a poor man’s irrigation system…

Water First — Think Water, Then Erosion

The Vetiver and Water foundation note — and why the order matters Ask most people what vetiver does and they will say it stops erosion. That is true, and it is the wrong place to start. Everything a vetiver hedge…

The Hedge that Builds Itself

A reader’s guide to the Vetiver Hedge Mechanisms standard, for members who do not build slopes for a living Our design standard guide  Vetiver Hedge Mechanisms now runs to a hundred pages and eighteen annexes, and parts of it are…

One Grass, Three Jobs: A Trilogy on Vetiver’s Living Functions

For most of its working life, vetiver has been valued as an “engineer”. It holds slopes, slows runoff, traps sediment, drains waterlogged ground, and treats decontaminated water and land . That reputation is deserved and thoroughly documented. But the same…

Vetiver Against Stem Borers: One Simple Rule Decides Where It Travels

Vetiver Against Stem Borers: One Simple Rule Decides Where It Travels In the paddy fields of Zhejiang, China, a quiet revolution in rice pest management has been running for more than a decade. Farmers plant rows of vetiver grass along…

Reading the Land from Space – A Compendium on Satellite Imagery and Field Evidence for the Vetiver System

Reading the Land from Space — A Compendium on Satellite Imagery and Field Evidence for the Vetiver System Guide to the seven documents, and the order to read them This compendium brings together what a land-restoration program can and cannot…

The Vetiver System for Stream Bank Stabilisation

The two attached documents make a complementary case for the Vetiver System (VS) as a living, low-cost means of protecting river, canal, dam and sea banks against flood and wave erosion. The first sets out the underlying method and a…

NEWSLETTER (NL2026-05): The $3 Revolution: Proving What Vetiver + AMF Can Really Do at Scale

This might be the most important post I write this year, and I'm going to be direct about why: We have something potentially extraordinary in our hands—a Vetiver- Arbuscular Mycorrhizal Fungi (AMF) partnership that research suggests could deliver 70-85% nematode...