Experimental study of riverbank protection with bio-engineering techniques

River management implies in many situation to control the river bank stability. Bio-engineering techniques are used as an alternative to rip-rap. These techniques are not new but a renewed interest was observed during the last decade. However the design of such bank protection is still largely based an expert evaluation of each situation, and we still crudely lack a real state of the art, based on mechanistic consideration of forces exerted by the river. We present the results of preliminary flume experiments aiming to study the resistance of river bank protections using bio-engineering techniques. The final applied objectives will be to propose a framework for a good use of such technique, accounting for the river morphodynamics context.