In the suburb of Beijing City

a bare section of the river bank was selected at the Liuli River to investigate and monitor the positive effects of soil bioengineering techniques on river ecological restoration in local areas.The river bank is marked by diverse types of soil erosion including splash erosion

sheet erosion

gully erosion and seepage erosion.Several soil engineering measures such as stem cuttings

brush mattress

root burying and fascine were deployed as near-natural restoration of the river bank.The growth characteristics and bank stabilization effects of Salix matsudana were investigated respectively in 1

4

5 and 13 months after the deployment.The results indicate that Salix matsudana achieved a high survival rate

and the average height of the new shoot and the average root diameter reached 116.9 cm and 0.85 cm respectively.The growth of Salix matsudana varied considerably among the four engineering measures.Within one month after the deployment

brush mattress treatment showed the highest growth vigor

followed in order by the treatments of root burying

and then fascine.In the other three investigation times

Salix matsudana in the root-burying treatment showed the best growing condition and the stem-cutting treatment was the worst.The growth characteristics in terms of root diameter and new-shoot height exhibited exactly the same trend.The application of soil bioengineering techniques efficiently recovered the plants on the riverbank and increased largely the biodiversity at the same time.This paper also summarized the precautions for the riverbank management.