Geotechnical Aspects of Groundwater Control

Due to the increasing world population growth and competition for space, especially in bigger cities, the construction of subsurface civil engineering structures has become unavoidable. Safety, both during and after the construction of such structures, is of paramount importance to civil engineers. One of the main challenges in securing this safety is presented in the form of groundwater flow and its control. In this paper, the state of the art techniques for controlling groundwater flow during underground excavation are outlined with case studies from some construction sites in Japan. It needs to be pointed out that no single technique is adequate for controlling groundwater flow at an excavation site. Also, not so much attention has been paid to the designed groundwater level, which plays a major role in the stability of the structure after construction. In addition, groundwater conservation has yet to be considered in the designs of such structures. It is necessary for by-passes for groundwater flow to be constructed and monitored over the long term to assess their performances.