XV Danube - European Conference on Geotechnical Engineering (DECGE 2014) H. Brandl & D. Adam (eds.) 9-11 September 2014, Vienna, Austria Paper No. 212 Abstract. The article presents verity of engineering activities which are aimed at erosion control and slope stability improvement of road and railway embankments. One of major challenges when constructing such structures is accelerated surface erosion which often, also during the exploitation of embankments, could cause severe local stability failures. The negative influence of run-off waters discharging from road directly on slopes is widely observed during construction of most transport roads. The uncontrolled water run-off could significantly increase economic factor, labour, materials and energy supply. The article focuses on alternative methods that could be applied on embankments surfaces to avoid the erosion effects. It gives information how proper design of bio and synthetic reinforcement could improve the quality of earth works. The main activities presented in the paper are proper compaction of built-in soils influencing vegetation establishment, which helps reinforcing earth structures in some cases. Inappropriate soil preparation could cause intensive accelerated erosion on slopes which in final stage could cause overall loss of stability. Keywords: earth slopes, reinforcements, accelerated erosion, stability analyses 1 INTRODUCTION The earth structure slopes are usually very much exposed to accelerated surface erosion, especially during the construction stage and initial exploitation. The uncontrolled water runoff significantly influences the budged of works, labour, materials used and the mechanical effectiveness of the structure during its exploitation. Dealing with the effects of erosion could increase expenses of the earth works as much as 20 %. The experience however reveals that accomplishment and reclamation works on the embankments could decrease the range eliminating erosion effects to a minimum. These could be achieved i.e by hydromechanical spread of slope with fertilizing suspension, waste products such as sewage sludge or other products of cohesive characteristics which protects from runoff before the vegetation is established on slopes. These solutions are commonly known as hydromulching or hydroseeding methods which are applied especially on slopes of steeper inclinations (Koda et al, 2013). Due to the fact that on engineered slopes there are no suitable conditions for vegetation establishment it is very important to be aware of creating additional nutrition rich and stable background for plants, different in the upper part and a down slope. To avoid severe damages caused by water and wind erosion, there are also available methods utilising synthetic materials such as biodegradable or geocomposite mattress or mats of a high strength (Koda and Osi ski, 2011). The factors determining the appropriate design of a safe slope are the inclination, height, and soil conditions as establishing background for the future vegetation development. The soil requires appropriate treat before planting. Poorly compacted bare slope is exposed to future mechanisms of failures and changes in bearing capacity of structure. Inappropriate erosion control on embankments drives to limitation of loads applied on the crest and limits the speed of vehicles using it, thus the effectiveness of transport capacity decreases. The main reason for this is designing techniques, methodologies and organization of constructing site lacks reviewing the actual needs of investments. Bio-engineering erosion control systems on engineered slopes of road embankments E. Koda 1 , P. Osi ski 1 1 Department of Geotechnical Engineering, Faculty of Civil and Environmental Engineering, Warsaw University of Life Sciences- SGGW