Gabion

The earliest known use of gabion structure was about 7,000 years ago. The Egyptians used baskets woven from sedge and filled with sludge to protect the shores of the Nile in the age of the pharaohs. Later on in the Middle Ages, in Europe baskets woven from sticks were filled with stones and earth and used for building castle fortifications or for protecting the shores of rivers. Today these baskets are called gabion structures, the name derives from the Italian word gabbione meaning "big cage". In the middle of the 19th century, gabion products was made only from woven steel wire, while welded steel mesh gabion appeared in the middle of the 20th century.

The use of gabion units is very simple. The structures folded up to the smallest possible volume need to be folded out on the construction site and the edges attached to each other. Before undertaking a gabion design, the type of soil being retained and the foundation soil type should be identified by a soil investigation survey to ascertain the correct parameters to use in design. The box-like volume created in this way is filled up with filling material available near the site. Generally, in the case of structures exposed to frost damage, the filling material is eruptive rock, but some structures - lined with geotextile fabric - can be filled with humus or earth.

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