Economic viability of streambank stabilization work with nature-based solutions applied to a pipeline stream crossing in South America

Pipelines are critically essential transportation infrastructures in most nations since they are essential to both standards of living, and economies. Traditional streambank stabilization in pipelines river crossings is carried out with civil engineering techniques. Environmental concerns have increased the demand for low environmental impact techniques that value the ecological characteristics and the hydraulic connectivity of fluvial systems. Soil bioengineering as a nature-based solution can be a suitable alternative to the civil engineering, which aside from being usually expensive, do not consider ecological issues. This work aimed to analyze the economic viability of a soil bioengineering work to stabilize a stream bed and banks with a pipeline stream crossing compared to a traditional engineering solution. Thus, to carry out the economic analysis, a comparison was made between the proposed budget for the civil engineering and the total cost of a soil bioengineering work performed. The financial analysis showed that the bioengineering intervention had a 49.06% lower cost than the solution foreseen by civil engineering, with the highest percentage of total value (39.97%) related to the materials acquisition. In conclusion, the soil bioengineering work presented economic viability to stabilize the streambed and banks when compared to the civil engineering solution.