Slope protection scheme along Mekong River in Laos

The Mekong River basin-wide protection programme recommended pilot bank protection projects at Thadeau and Muangwa near Vientiane in Laos. These projects incorporated schemes to protect and therefore, stabilize sections of the river bank slope where erosion has reached dangerous level which threaten the safety of the people living and using the road running along the Mekong River bank. In the first project at Thadeau, ample space was still available for cutting back the bank slope and enable the placement of the slope erosion protection scheme directly on natural soil. This project has been constructed in 1992 and has been performing very satisfactory. In the second project at Muangwa, due to lack of available space, compacted fill was needed in conjunction with geotextile reinforcements. This second project will be implemented later this year. Both protection schemes employ the use of gabions and mattresses in combination with nonwoven needle-punched geotextiles. The soil evaluation, analyses, and designs of the slope protection schemes are the subjects of this paper.