Seismic behaviour of retaining wall-backfill systems with vegetation

Using vegetation to stabilize slopes, based on the root-soil interaction effects, to improve the Earth´s environment has been verified and validated by many researchers. This study investigates whether vegetation is also essential to the retaining wall-backfill system under earthquake conditions. In accordance with the conclusions from the history studies of geotechnical centrifuge experiments on pile-soil interaction and on a representative mechanical model of a general woody root system, a numerical model considering dynamic root-soil interaction effects is built and a finite element analysis procedure is conducted in this paper for capturing the weakening retain-wall behaviour of vegetation. The result shows that excess pore pressure should be evaluated to eliminate the harm coming from the conflict between landscape and geotechnical engineering when trees are planted on top of a retaining wall.