Environmental Geomechanics

Book excerpt: This book covers a range of topics that are of increasing importance in engineering practice: natural hazards, pollution, and environmental protection through good practice. The first half of the book deals with natural risk factors, of both natural and human origin, that should be considered: subsidence, accidental infiltration, soil instability, rockslides and mudslides, debris flow, and degradation of buildings and monuments due to pollution and climactic effects, for example. These problems are highlighted and it is shown that a combination of sophisticated numerical techniques and extensive experimental investigations are necessary in order to effectively tackle these problems. The second half of the book is devoted to the use of polluted sites and associated problems, a topic of growing significance given the increasing reclamation of land from abandoned industrial sites for urban development over the last 20 years. Different types of oil pollution and decontamination methods are described, followed by a discussion of waste management and detailed coverage of confinement liners used in surface waste disposal.