Today 5 December is celebrated as a World Soil Day in all Over the World by the concern of FAO (Food and Agriculture Organization). Soil degradation induces soils nutrient depleted losing their capacity to support crops and threat to Food security, while others have such a high nutrient concentration that represent a toxic environment to plants and animals, pollutes the environment and highly risk of climate change.World Soil Day 2022 and its campaign “Soils: Where food begins” aims to raise awareness of the importance of maintaining healthy ecosystems and human well-being by addressing the growing challenges in soil management, soil health, increasing soil awareness and encouraging societies to improve soil fertility and productivity. Jute which is popular as Golden Fibre can be used as soil saver and protect soil degradation, erosion as Jute Geo-taxtile form. Bangladesh is mainly agri based country. Its soil is most fertile. Natural calamity caused our farmers life wretched. Most of the cases soil in the riverbank is being landslide. Geotextiles are a natural way to stop soil erosion that also improves soil properties. Jute fabric is much useful in our country. Because Jute GSM is high and can bear good amount of load which is load bearing capacity. Jute fibre tenacity range about 4.2 to 6.3 gm/denier.Jute fabric has some properties such as moisture absorbable, biodegradable, acidic, less elastic in nature, composite, easily throwaway .All of these properties are suitable for soil protectoin. Jute geo textiles density 1.4gm/cc, Jute fibre has about lignin 12-14% which play a factor to bear load of soil and soil protection. Jute geo textiles are used in soil protection for variety field. Such as, it is used in foundation and mound soils for extra loads, foundation and mound soils for highways fills, foundation and compressed for soils layers etc. Jute geo textile strengthened weak soil and lessen the pressure of soil. In landslide area it is used as filtration. Because geo textile porous structure allowed water or other liquid easily and protecting particles of soil. Good Flexibility, permeability structure of Jute geo is basically good for filtration of construction. Many times, muddy structure is not convenient for building. In this case, it need to stabilize muddy structure and jute geo is used to make stable. Free of hydrocarbons of geo textiles are used in road building, river bank stabilization, flood prevention, shallow land recovery, railroad slope stabilization, and many other applications.
There are many reasons why we want to use jute geo textiles. Some of the reasons are biodegradable, water-absorbing, inexpensive substitute for petrochemical-based materials, and vanishes after 1-3 vegetation cycles, great soil protection due to its hefty weight which is difficult for storms or rain to lift, protection of seeds and weeds etc. Jute geo is also used for soil saver like as grass environment, natural areas with vegetation, sand hills, high wind regions along the coast, riverside slopes and wetland areas etc. In order to create over these countless micro-dams, jute land degradation matting receives the kinetic energy of the erosive elements and flattens the top soil. make it easier for vegetation to regenerate. Some jute geo which is produced only for vegetation to regenerate. After a few months, jute will decompose completely and become compost. Lastly, I want to say there is a huge scope for using jute geo textiles for the land stabilization, soil erosion, vegetation etc. in our agricultural sector. So Jute Geo textile would be environment friendly element to protect soil erosion and soil maintainance.
Written by- Md. Ariful Islam, Scientific Officer Bangladesh Jute Research Institute
&
Md. Abul Bashar, Scientific Officer
Soil Resource Development Institute Ministry of Agriculture
