Effect of New Mattress System with Vegetation Base Materials on the Vegetation Coverage of Stream bank

This study was conducted to develop new mattress systems with vegetation base materials for protecting stream bank and rapid rehabilitation. Vegetation base materials are primarily compounded with fine soil, organic composts and peat moss as plant fibers, a water retainer and a soil improver. Peat moss can usually provide necessary natural fibers and organic materials in soil. Especially, peat moss can absorb up to 25 times its own weight in water and is therefore valued as a water retainer to prevent drying effect of vegetation base materials which can harm the growth of vegetation in mattresses. Normally mattress systems resist the lateral earth pressures or stream power by their own weight. Therefore, filled materials must have suitable weight, compressive strength and durability to resist the loading, as well as the effects of water and weathering. In this project, 100 to 200-mm clean, hard stones were basically specified, and about 50-mm rubbles were also used. Test application of new mattress system carried out in the stream bank of a small stream in the Gwangreung experimental forest, belonging to Korea Forest Research Institute (KFRI) in December 16th, 2006. As a result of the monitoring of vegetation coverage of test application plots (each plot size is 4 by 2 m), the coverage of all plots reached 100% in the end of May, 2007 (approximately 50 days passed after the first gemination of vegetation). The coverage of the plots using big hard stones and organic composts and the plots containing peat moss increased more rapidly. The results show that peat moss is effective to retain soil moisture and establish more sound environment for vegetation gemination.