We design fjords

We aspire to be like Slartibartfast, and one day, “design and build a fjord”, a task for which this science fiction character was awarded: “Look at me – I design coastlines. I got an award for Norway. I’ve been doing fjords all my life… for a fleeting moment they became fashionable and I got a major award.” (Slartibartfast, Planet Designer, The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, Adams, 1979, ch. 30).

GeoFluv™ - Natural Regrade

La Plata Mine (New Mexico, United States). Nicholas Bugosh

GeoFluvTM is the most complete and widespread geomorphic reclamation method in the world. Patented in the United States, it is applied through the Carlson Natural Regrade, software, the only computer software currently available to design landscapes which have the characteristics and complexity of natural landscapes, by means of Computer-aided Design (CAD). It uses the drainage basin as the fundamental landscape design unit and is particularly suitable for the geomorphic restoration of unconsolidated materials, such as mining waste (waste rock dumps and tailing deposits) and all types of landfills (civil works, demolition and construction, urban, etc.).

Around GeoFluv-Natural Regrade, Restauración Geomorfológica® is one of only five groups worldwide that constitute a consortium for the dissemination and training in this method, together with: GeoFluv, a US company led by Nicholas Bugosh, inventor of the method; Landforma, in Australia, led by Rod Eckels; Vast, a landscape architecture company based in Sweden, founded by Matt Baida and Frida Holst; and Mining Resource Consultancy, in South Africa, led by Eugene Schutte.

Talus Royal

LIFE RIBERMINE project (Peñalén, Guadalajara). Miguel Ángel Langa – Fotolanga.es

This method, registered in France, makes it possible to design and build rock slopes which reproduce escarpments and cliffs very similar to natural ones, obtaining maximum stability and maximizing visual and ecological integration into their surroundings. This avoids the troubling visual impact that the excavation of rock massifs almost always entails. The aim is to reconstruct escarpments which are adapted to the local geological structure and lithology, and to the way in which these are naturally eroded, maintaining the character of the landscape. The geomorphic reshaping of rock slopes by using the Talus Royal method is an act of construction which can be incorporated into mining or linear infrastructure projects. It does not seek to destroy the supporting ‘bedrock’ of the landscape and provides the primary substratum of flora and fauna, in short, of life, while installing an infrastructure or a mine, which are inevitably temporary activities. On the contrary, it builds a permanent landscape, respecting its soul, or intricate complexity, inspired by the architectural potential of the initial geology, which is almost always the basis of the landscape. Our close cooperation with the inventor of the method, Paul Royal, makes it possible for us to offer geomorphic restoration designs in rock massifs.

Poveda (Upper Tagus, Guadalajara). Miguel Ángel Langa – Fotolanga.es

Siberia

Example of SIBERIA modelling. Greg Hancock

SIBERIA is a Landscape Evolution Model (LEM) which allows predicting erosion rates in different scenarios, site typology (rills, gullies…) and where these will occur. In addition, it allows the visualization of erosion in Digital Terrain Models (DTM) and its evolution in time on scales of decades, hundreds or thousands of years. LEMs are more suitable than other models, such as USLE, for predicting erosion in scenarios such as mining, given that the latter were designed to predict erosion at the scale of slopes and by sheet wash, or rilling, but they do not predict erosion in gullies and in large areas, as occurs in mining. For this reason, SIBERIA is widely used to predict erosion in mining landscapes, particularly in Australia. Our close collaboration with the world’s leading specialist in this model, Greg Hancock, allows us to offer this solution.

Geologic landscaping

A replica of a small granite boulder outcrop in a private garden. Restauración Geomorfológica®

The incorporation of geological and geomorphic features in urban landscapes, to replicate natural rocky outcrops and landforms, which differ depending on the lithology (granite castle koppies, tors or boulders, limestone karst, sandstone towers…) in the design of green areas, parks and private gardens, is scarce. At Restauración Geomorfológica® we have already carried out interventions of this type, some of them with the Locus Landscape, ltudio, which allows us to offer this service.