ABSTRACT
The revitalization of the global economy after the COVID-19 era presents Environmental Geotechnics with the opportunity to reinforce the need for a change in paradigm toward a green, circular economy and to promote aggressively the use and development of sustainable technologies and management practices. This paper aims to assist in this effort by concentrating on several thematic areas where sustainability solutions and future improvements are sought. These include the re-entry of construction and demolition waste, excavated material, industrial waste, and marine sediments into the production cycle and the reuse of existing foundations. Despite the recent trend in advanced countries toward recycling and waste-to-energy thermal treatment, landfills still constitute the most common municipal solid waste management practice, especially in low-and-middle-income countries, and technological solutions to improve their environmental footprint are presented. At the same time, remediation solutions are required to address the multitude of contaminated sites worldwide. Advanced developments that incorporate environmental, economic, and social dimensions are expounded, together with sustainable ground improvement solutions for infrastructure projects conducted in soft and weak soils. The topic of thermo-active geostructures concludes this paper, where, apart from their infrastructure utility, these structures have the potential to contribute as a renewable energy source. © 2021 ICE Publishing: All rights reserved.
ABSTRACT
The outbreak of the coronavirus disease 2019 (Covid-19) pandemic not only has created a health crisis across the world but is also expected to impact negatively the global economy and societies at a scale that is maybe larger than that of the 2008 financial crisis. Simultaneously, it has inevitably exerted many negative consequences on the geoenvironment on which human beings depend. The current paper articulates the role of environmental geotechnics in elucidating and mitigating the effects of the current pandemic. It is the belief of all authors that the Covid-19 pandemic presents not only significant challenges but also opportunities for the development of the environmental geotechnics field. This discipline should make full use of geoenvironmental researchers' and engineers' professional skills and expertise to look for development opportunities from this crisis, to highlight the irreplaceable position of the discipline in the global fight against pandemics and to contribute to the health and prosperity of communities, to serve humankind better. In order to reach this goal while taking into account the specificity of severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) and the uncertainty of its environmental effects, it is believed that more emphasis should be placed on the following research directions: pathogen-soil interactions;isolation and remediation technologies for pathogen-contaminated sites;new materials for pathogen-contaminated soil;recycling and safe disposal of medical wastes;quantification of uncertainty in geoenvironmental and epidemiological problems;emerging technologies and adaptation strategies in civil, geotechnical and geoenvironmental infrastructures;pandemic-induced environmental risk management;and modelling of pathogen transport and fate in geoenvironment, among others. Moreover, Covid-19 has made it clear to the environmental geotechnics community the importance of urgent international co-operation and of multidisciplinary research actions that must extend to a broad range of scientific fields, including medical and public health disciplines, in order to meet the complexities posed by the Covid-19 pandemic. © 2021 ICE Publishing: All rights reserved.