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Geotechnical News • September 2019
COMPUTING IN GEOTECHNICAL ENGINEERING
From the GS Board
18th Global Joint Seminar on Geo-Environmental Engineering
This is a contribution by Catherine Mulligan, Chair of the CGS Sustainable Geotechnics Committee
The 18th Global Joint Seminar on
Geo-Environmental Engineering was
held on May 30-31, 2019 at Concor-
dia University in Montreal, QC, with
more than 70 participants from coun-
tries including Japan, South Korea,
France, Canada, Philippines, China,
and United States. Since its incep-
tion in 2001, the seminar has been
held annually in Japan, South Korea,
France, and Canada. It was last held in
Canada, also at Concordia University,
in 2015.
The main objective of the seminar
series is to provide an international
forum for the exchange of ideas
and recent advances in the field of
geo-environmental engineering. The
audience this year included engineers,
researchers, and other environmen-
tal professionals from universities,
research institutes and industry, and
consultants and students.
The first day was opened by Profes-
sor Masashi Kamon of the Research
Institute of Environmental Geotech-
nics of Japan, a founding member of
the seminar series, who provided a
history of the seminar. The keynote
lecture was presented by François
Beaudoin of Golder Associates,
Montreal, based on his expertise in the
selection, design and implementation
of sustainable remediation techniques
and approaches.
In total, 50 papers were organized into
12 sessions:
• Landfills
• Materials
• Waste rock
• Barriers
• Mining and metals
• Leaching from rocks
• Soil improvement
• Remediation (3 sessions)
• Geotechnical aspects, and
• Landfills and barriers
Five posters were also presented.
The second day consisted of a techni-
cal tour, lab tours, student awards
and a concluding dinner cruise. The
technical tour was led by Martin
Héroux, of the Ville de Montréal to a
decommissioned landfill that is being
rehabilitated into a theme park. It was
supported by his presentation entitled
“An environmental problem to benefit
the population: the example of the
“Complexe Environnemental de Saint-
Michel”.
Five papers were selected from the
2015 seminar and were published in
a special themed issue of
Environ-
mental Geotechnics
(Volume 6, Issue
2, April 2019, pp 65-122). This issue
focused on the challenge of manag-
ing contaminants in various scenarios
and reusing waste materials. A second
themed issue of
Environmental Geo-
technics
is planned to include selected
papers from the 2019 seminar to
continue to highlight the importance
of solving issues globally in a sustain-
able geo-environmental engineering
context, and to continue to disseminate
research and practices to help society
in providing safe and environmentally
friendly solutions.
Financial support for the seminar was
provided by Concordia University’s
Office of Research and Gina Cody
School of Engineering and Computer
Science, and the Canadian Society
of Civil Engineering. Non-financial
support was provided by the Canadian
Geotechnical Society.
Catherine N. Mulligan
Chair of the 18th Global Joint
Seminar on Geo-Environmental
Engineering and
Professor, Civil and Environmental
Engineering, Concordia University,
Dept. Bldg. Civil and Environmental
Eng, EV 6-187, 1455 de
Maisonneuve Blvd. W., Montreal,
QC H3G 1M8 Canada
Overhead view of 18th Global Joint Seminar delegates.
