植被抗蚀护坡的潜能源于它与近地面大气、土壤等的相互作用，具体表现为植被的水文效应和机械救应。对这些效应的科学认识是建立植被坡面生态工程基础理论的前提。在过去几十年里，人们对植被与侵蚀之间的因果关系以及植被的坡面保护作用的认识不断加强，使植被越来越成为控制侵蚀和稳定斜坡的有效手段。由于它比较突出的优点和潜能，这一生物学避径在自然环境保护和工程建设方面已经积累了许多经验，具有不少成功的案例，展现了其广阔的发展前景。

Cegetation provides potential erosion control and slope protection, athrough its hydrological and mechanical interaction of plants eith local climate and soil. The tehoretical understanding of these vetetyative effects is the base of slope eco-engineering. In the past few decades, the importance of vegetation in protecting slopes has been stressed by many researcher. The greater awareness that vegetation can play a range of roles in slope protection has made it increasingly a valuable tool in natural environmental protection and vivil engineering. and theis knowledge has led to a invreasing application of vegetation types world-wide. Though it is still a kind of young techniques, an in creasing amout of experience of slope eco-engineering of vegetation is gathering from the past practoces, and the lager number of suocessful examples of its application is showing its great future.

乔木根系的土壤加强作用是防护林稳定土壤和保护坡面的最有效的机械途径，其中侧根的牵引效应在林地的固土护坡过程中具有重要作用，其潜能与侧根的抗张强度呈正相关关系。本研究构建了侧根抗张强度与其牵引效应的数学模型，对云南山地以云南松林和滇青冈林为代表的松属和青冈属乔木群落进行了分析。结果表明：青冈属和松属乔木侧根的抗张强度分别在40～10MPa和30～5MPa范围内，量值的高低随侧根直径的增加而降低。两种乔木的侧根在0～60cm的土壤深处有较高的分布密度，由于具有一定的强度，通过它们的牵引效应，侧根使这一深度的根际土层的抗张强度提高了6.85～12.41kPa。在各个土层，青冈乔木固土护坡能力明显高于松属，说明松属侧根在浅层土体加固方面具有局限性。

植物垂直根系对加强根际土层的整体强度和提高其斜向滑动阻力具有重要作用。经过对云南中部地区云南松幼树的野外测试和模型预测，证实了该树种垂直根的这种作用。剪切实验表明，松树垂直根可以使根际土层的整体抗剪强度平均提高0.98%Mpa,使土层对斜向滑动的阻力提高42.09%。预测结果得到的强度增量平均值班是2.67MPa。分析认为，云南松垂直根作用的真实量值介于这2种方法的确定值之间。