The aim of this paper is to explore how plants are able to provide
mechanical and hydrological reinforcement to the soil under different
soil hydrological regimes. To do this, we first define a novel, simple
and reproducible laboratory protocol to investigate how changes in
soil moisture modify the mechanical response of vegetation upon soil
reinforcement. We then look at how plants modify the soil properties
and what implications this may have for soil reinforcement. Finally we
attempt to evaluate the suction stress functions for both fallowand vegetated
soil, as a proxy to quantify the plant-derived soil hydrological
reinforcement.