BOOK REVIEW: Bio-Techniques for Slope Erosion Control List Price U.S.A. $64.95 Order # 0000 At last, a practical and comprehensive guide to erosion control . . . A bio-revolution has happened in the erosion control field during the past decade, and the authors of the newly released Biotechnical and Soil Bioengineering Slope Stabilization: A Practical Guide for Erosion Control include many examples, applications, and case studies. The book by Donald H. Gray, PhD, and Robbin B. Sotir is also liberally illustrated with diagrams and photographs, though black and white, which often picture projects with which both authors have been associated over that decade and which they have distilled into a useful reference handbook on the subject. Intended as a reference book for practicing professionals, the book should prove valuable across diverse fields -- geotechnical engineering, geology, soil science, forestry, environmental horticulture, and landscape architecture -- or as a textbook for college-level courses or workshops whose course content includes erosion control slope stability, watershed rehabilitation, and land restoration. Helpful background information on the nature of soil erosion and mass-movement, the role and function of slope vegetation in the stability of slopes, and techniques for the selection, establishment, and maintenance of appropriate vegetation augments well-documented case studies showing how various soil bioengineering methods have been chosen for particular site conditions. The book not only covers general principles and attributes of biotechnical/soil bioengineering stabilization and specific soil bioengineering measures -- live staking, live fascines, brush layering, branch packing, live crib walls, and slope gratings -- that can be employed on slopes, but also conjunctive use of plants and earth-retaining structures or revetments, including plantings on slopes above low toe-walls, on benches of tiered retaining walls, and in the frontal interstices (openings) of porous retaining structures -- crib walls, gabions, and rock breast walls; the use of vegetation in porous hard armor revetments such as rock riprap, gabion mattresses, and articulated blocks; and the use of nets, mats, and other types of structural/mechanical reinforcement as biotechnical groundcovers or "reinforced grass" systems to improve the establishment and performance of grass cover on steep slopes or temporary waterways. As a Professor of Civil and Environmental Engineering at the University of Michigan and an Associate Editor of LASN, Gray is well published, and previously collaborated with Andrew Leaser, a Professor of Environmental Horticulture at UC Davis to write a precursor book Biotechnical Slope Protection and Erosion Control (Van Nostrand Reinhold Company, 1982). Co-author Sotir, a practicing soil bioengineering professional, is President of Robbin B. Sotir & Associates, Inc. in Georgia, whose staff's drawings are often represented. LASN readers will also recognize some of the industry experts who are acknowledged for providing critical reviews of the manuscript.