Los Amigos de Valles Caldera has been performing watershed restoration projects in the Valles Caldera National Preserve in the Jemez Mountains of New Mexico for over 8 years through funding from the State of New Mexico and the US EPA. A major focus of the work has been on reducing sediment and temperature TMDLs for the San Antonio Creek by implementing erosion control and stream restoration treatments. One innovative treatment involved the use of Sod Tiles; these pieces of native sod were placed at floodplain elevation on eroding outer stream banks to prevent erosion and re-vegetate the bank. Several plant community types were tested by the use of a Bank Transect monitoring technique, especially created for this project. Despite the effects of post-fire flooding from the Las Conchas fire, both types of sod tiles were effective at preventing erosion and re-vegetating the bank. Our results show an increase in vegetated cover on the eroding banks from about 20% to over 50% in one year's time. We also show some important differences between the effectiveness of different plant communities used to create the sod tiles, as well as the techniques used in installing the tiles with the tracked mini-excavator. The sod tile technique may be an effective and easy to install technique that may replace the use of post or log vanes, riprap, or gabions for stream bank erosion repair in the appropriate geomorphic and ecological settings.

• published: 20 Mar 2014
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