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Haiti
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Bamboo

The Major Advantages of Bamboo for Construction

The physico-chemical impressive proprieties

• Tested in compression, shear tension and bending, bamboo construction poles (Stenotachya, Guadua in particular) are always more effective than Douglas timber.
• Assembled correctly, the bamboo structures are resistant to earthquakes and hurricanes.
• Rich in silica (cane harvested at maturity - 3 to 4 years - when they are less rich in water and sugar) bamboo is 30% harder than oak. Like hemp, it is not attacked by termites and is less likely than timber (except precious exotic wood) to be attacked by insects and fungi.
• Bamboo is more fire-resistant than oak and Douglas

Important yield

• Production efficiency of raw material for construction: 20 times higher than the trees for same surface/time
  In Chittagong, in eastern Burma, we found a density of 3,000 to 9,000 cane per hectare, and another stand an average of 15,000 cane per hectare in a three-course rotation (Ahmed, 1954).
  Weighing experiments, which were conducted in the region with Melocanna bambusoides, showed that 1,000 whole stems weighed 4.5 tons, or 2.6 tons green air dried. These figures give weight 3 to 9.5 tons per acre (0.4 ha) for rods, air dried, and 38 metric tons per hectare, for a three-course rotation on the basis of the aforementioned counts. (Source FAO)
• Harvested each year (7 years after planting), compared with 30 to 50 years for trees.
• Natural regeneration.

Bamboo has many environmental advantages

• Absorbs 30% more CO2 than trees. Up to 12 tons of CO2/ha/year (3 tons for a trees forest) and thereby releases more oxygen
• Improves water infiltration into the soil (twice as much as a deciduous forest)
• Limits soil erosion (very dense root network of 60 centimeters deep)
• Limits leaching of soil (infiltration depth of nutrients or pollutants ...)
• Restores depleted soil
• Helps to eliminate toxins from the soil (phyto-remediation)
• Pumps water from the soil when it is available on the surface without drying aquifers
• Culture requiring little or no fertilizer, no pesticides
  

Bamboo Structures for Sustainable Development

• Low energy consumption. Bamboo has a much better energy balance (*) than other construction materials. It takes 8 times less energy to create a building with bamboo than with cement for the same capacity (Roach 1996) :
  
  Steel : 1500
  Cement : 240
  Wood : 80
  Bamboo : 30
  
  
• Saves time, streamlining transportation
• Proximity of production and transformation areas: sustainability of social links
  
• Recycles easily