The Relevance of Public Geotechnical Databases

Timothy Thompson

The viability of a modern public geotechnical database is influenced by many factors including the availability of data, an area’s population density, and seismic risk. Where a city, region or country has sustained the use of a geotechnical database or databases through evolving technology and generational change, the benefits can become embedded in routine practice. Elsewhere the creation of a database may be constrained by questions of liability and intellectual property, or by consultants who view a public database as working to their competitive disadvantage. With a summary of several geotechnical databases around the world (including at least one that prioritises investigation logs compiled for public works financed by tax payers), the presentation will highlight their potential benefits for the assessment of risk, reduction in costs, research, adoption of a standardised investigation data format, and analytical methods in geotechnical engineering.

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