Retaining walls usually use for the purpose of holding loose back soils and flood protection. Retaining walls can be constructed from different materials such as stone masonry, concrete (plain and reinforcement) materials, and gabions. Steel and wooden retaining walls can be also used in some cases. This study investigates the destruction causes of retaining walls constructed from different materials. We have used field data collected from different sites in the city of Khost, Afghanistan. The result revealed that the destruction level of stone masonry walls is lower than that walls constructed from reinforced cement concrete retaining walls while both of them were constructed by local people without design documents. It has been also found that reinforced cement concrete walls shown better result than stone masonry walls and gabion walls while they are properly designed.

Keywords : Retaining Wall, Destruction Causes, Stone Masonry, Reinforced, Gabion.