Necessity of Geotechnical Data Base and of Reliable Technical Committees for the Civil Engineering Projects

Abstract

In order to safely and soundly construct any civil engineering infrastructure and to predict the liquefaction potential as well as the seismic intensity, it is very important to have a reliable geotechnical data base and also to constitute an effective scientific and technical committee. At first, this paper describes the outline of geotechnical database, "Kansai Geo-Informatics Database (GI-base)", that was created by a consortium of geotechnical engineers/researchers and their affiliated organizations in Kansai region of Japan; the KG-NET (Kansai Geo-informatics Network). Then, it emphasizes that the geotechnical engineers must have the knowledge of subsurface structure in addition to that of soil properties. Finally, it introduces the case history of a successfully disbanded technical committee for the Nakanoshima railway line (subway) construction project which consisted of members not only from universities, owner and administrative organizations, but also from contractors. The committee greatly contributed to the successful completion of the Nakanoshima line.