Italian journal of engineering geology and environment

An odd couple: Outlook on global risks and memory exercise about Engineering Geology

Gabriele Scarascia Mugnozza — Wed, 31 Jan 2024 00:00:00 +0000

Engineering geology on the thread of memory

Rinaldo Genevois — Wed, 31 Jan 2024 00:00:00 +0000

The invitation to deliver a talk on his 80th birthday gave Prof. Rinaldo Genevois the opportunity to look back on his life in the light of the evolution of what Applied Geology meant and what it means today. The thread of memory runs over a period of more than 40 years through four different universities where he studied, researched and taught this discipline, progressively changing its content and participating in the continuous expansion of its fields of application. After a brief historical excursus, his journey begins in the late 1960s and ends with his retirement. At the same time, Applied Geology was transformed from a strictly naturalistic science, as defined by Ardito Desio, to a complex and structured discipline as defined by the IAEG in 1970, which can best be denoted by Engineering Geology. The story looks above all at that people who has directly participated in this long journey largely first as students and later as passionate researchers.

Reliability of various soil characteristics relationships for Kirkuk soil using consistent undisturbed field soils samples with linear regression models

Aram Mohammed Raheem, Ibrahim Jalal Naser — Wed, 31 Jan 2024 00:00:00 +0000

Due to the new construction and development of massive geotechnical superstructures, as well as a limited budget and time frame, it is critical to assess the reliability of numerous correlations between different soil characteristics. Various field soil data from 40 boreholes across Kirkuk City (Iraq) were obtained and they include water content (w%), liquid and plastic limits (LL and PL), plasticity and liquidity indices (PI and LI), unconfined compressive strength (UCS), wet and dry densities (γ_t and γ_d), and consolidation characteristics (initial void ratio “e_o”, compression index “C_c” and recompression index “C_r”). Field correlations with linear regression models were used to examine the reliability of relationships between different soil characteristics. The acquired soil data were evaluated using distinctive previous published models. It was demonstrated that the PI and LI are correlated positively whereas the w% and γ_d are correlated negatively and their degree of correlations are 0.878 and -0.573 respectively. It was proved that positive linear regression models can be obtained for the relations between the values of the LL, PL, PI, LI, and γ_t with the increase of the water content. Finally, it is demonstrated that the soils of Kirkuk City (Iraq) have Cc values less than the prediction of the previous models.

On the presence of fluvio-lacustrine deposits on the Pomarico hill (Matera): interpretation and engineering geology relevance

Michele Lupo, Pia Rosella Tecca, Rinaldo Genevois — Wed, 31 Jan 2024 00:00:00 +0000

The village of Pomarico stands on top of a ridge between the valleys of the Bradano and Basento Rivers (Southern Italy) and is formed by the terms of the Plio-Pleistocene marine regressive cycle of the Bradanic Foredeep. In this area, the presence was observed of post-regressive alluvial facies in non-conformable contact with the underlying formation. This paper, based on an extensive engineering geological survey, reports the find of deposits rather different from those typical of the local stratigraphic series. The micropaleontological analyses indicate that these deposits are referable to Middle-Upper Pleistocene, suggesting a marsh or pond environment subsequent to the filling phases of the sedimentary basin and the following emersion. X-ray diffractometric analyses indicate a mineralogical composition similar to that of the Subapennine Clays, with a predominance of montmorillonite among clay minerals. The higher amount of montmorillonite results in significantly lower shear strength and higher compressibility values, entailing a different general behaviour with respect to natural or human-induced stresses. In order to highlight the relevance of their presence, numerical stability analyses were performed on a slope characterised by the presence of these deposits, also taking into account the seismicity of the area. The results seem to justify the surface creep phenomena and the small shallow landslides that characterise the area.

Study on land degradation monitoring in Shanxi by using remote sensing images

Xiaorong Zhang — Wed, 31 Jan 2024 00:00:00 +0000

Land degradation is a serious environmental problem. This paper briefly introduces the concept of remote sensing image technology and land degradation, and describes the basic process of using remote sensing image to monitor land degradation. Then, Shanxi Province was taken as an example to analyze the land cover type change and net primary productivity (NPP) change during 2016-2021. The annual average precipitation showed an increasing trend, and there was a significant positive correlation between the area of land types such as forest lands, grasslands, and water areas and the annual average precipitation. Moreover, the proportion of forest land, grassland, and construction land increased while the proportion of cultivated land gradually decreased; however, the proportion of water area remained basically unchanged. The local NPP showed an overall upward trend; NPP increased significantly or extremely significantly in most regions, while NPP decreased significantly or extremely significantly in a small part of regions.

Application of topsis model based on game theory to reservoir water quality evaluation

Xu Yang, Qing Zhuang, Tangzhe Nie — Wed, 31 Jan 2024 00:00:00 +0000

In view of the shortcomings of the single weighting method, the game theory method was adopted to optimize the combination of the subjective weight determined by the analytic hierarchy process (AHP) method and the objective weight determined by the entropy weight method. The technique for order preference by similarity to an ideal solution (TOPSIS) evaluation model based on the combination weighting of the AHP-entropy weight method-game theory was constructed for evaluating the water quality of Mopanshan Reservoir. The result obtained by the TOPSIS evaluation model was compared with the evaluation result of the grey relational model. The evaluation results showed that the water quality of Mopanshan Reservoir during the sampling period was Class I and II. The main factors affecting water quality were NH3-N (ammonia nitrogen) and pH value. The game theory-based combination weighting TOPSIS model proposed in this paper fully considers the effective information among various indicators, reduces the subjective arbitrariness of weighting, makes indicator weighting more scientific, and obtains more reasonable water quality evaluation results. It is worthy of application in similar water quality evaluation problems.