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Reference.org
Retaining wall
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<p>Retaining walls are relatively rigid walls used for supporting soil laterally so that it can be retained at different levels on the two sides. Retaining walls are structures designed to restrain soil to a slope that it would not naturally keep to (typically a steep, near-vertical or vertical slope). They are used to bound soils between two different elevations often in areas of inconveniently steep terrain in areas where the landscape needs to be shaped severely and engineered for more specific purposes like hillside farming or roadway overpasses. A retaining wall that retains soil on the backside and water on the frontside is called a <a href="/facts/Seawall/mccVfcKm">seawall</a> or a <a href="/facts/Bulkhead_(partition)/0UudKUJy">bulkhead</a>. </p>