Hampton Forest Slash Barrier

Situation de départ

The best management of slash material is at the source. However, even with the best practices, unforeseen extreme weather events can mobilise tree waste and debris into river channels which can cause significant damage to downstream assets. Historically in New Zealand forestry slash-catching barriers are built in-house with various combinations of rope, railway irons and recycled steel members which are then secured back to the bank with deadman anchors.  These structures are effective at stopping small volumes of slash material but risk catastrophic failure from overload subsequently releasing a large volume of material downstream at once. Rayonier Matariki Forests wanted to be proactive and set a new protection benchmark by installing a Geobrugg 1:1 tested and engineered solution, common in Europe but a first in NZ. Although designed for an extreme weather event, the intention is that the barrier is never significantly impacted through slash management at the source and then it can then be dismantled and used at another similar location.